War prompts Europeans to switch holidays away from eastern Mediterranean
Holidaymakers who had planned to visit the eastern Mediterranean this summer are moving their trips to the west and the Caribbean because of the US-Israel war on Iran, travel companies have said.Travellers from the UK and mainland Europe are increasingly swapping their holiday destinations away from Cyprus, Turkey and Greece towards Italy, Spain, Malta and Croatia, as the region around the Middle East grapples with flight cancellations and airspace closures.Tui, Europe’s biggest holiday operator, said demand had risen sharply in recent days for holidays in Spain, Portugal, Greece and Cape Verde this summer as customers opted for “familiar, easy‑to‑reach locations”.“While we are seeing some cancellations in the affected areas, these are currently outweighed by customers choosing to amend their plans instead,” Neil Swanson, a director at Tui, said.Jonathon Woodall-Johnston, of Hays Travel, the holiday agency that took on some of the collapsed Thomas Cook high street stores, added that demand was growing particularly strongly for trips to Italy, Malta and Croatia.
More people were also looking across the Atlantic for their summer holiday, they said, in an attempt to avoid travel disruption.Swanson said: “We’re seeing particularly strong demand for our direct long‑haul flying to the Caribbean, especially the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.”Mark Duguid, of the Surrey-based holiday operator Kuoni, said interest in the Caribbean was “off the charts” for trips in the coming weeks.“Everything has just been squeezed,” he said.“What we’ve seen is huge increases in flight prices, because the seats remaining are limited – we are talking about seats going up by £1,000 a person for an economy seat, which then prices the holiday out of the market for many customers.
”A week ago, the least expensive round-trip flights from London to Antigua and Barbuda for the last week in March cost £720, according to price tracking data from Google.This has since risen by 27% to £917.It comes as the tourism industry begins to count the cost of conflict in the Middle East.Shares in On the Beach, the online holiday agent, fell by as much as 13% on Thursday after it suspended its annual profit guidance because of the “unknown” duration and outcome of the war and its long-term impact on travel.It told investors it had already experienced a “significant slowdown” for bookings to destinations such as Turkey, Cyprus and Egypt.
On the Beach said there had also been a slowdown in bookings for Greece, where tourism is the cornerstone of the country’s economy,However, Tui said it had seen strong demand for Greek holidays in recent days,Other travel operator shares have fallen since the US-Israel attack on Iran, with shares in easyJet and Jet2 down by 16% and 10%, respectively,The rival online agent Loveholidays, which had been tipped to be the London Stock Exchange’s first big listing of 2026, is now reportedly preparing to delay its flotation, according to the Financial Times,Meanwhile, the Middle East’s tourism industry has been wiped out by the conflict, with the Foreign Office advising against travel to the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.
British Airways has cancelled its seasonal Abu Dhabi route from Heathrow until “later this year”, and the low-cost airline Wizz Air told Bloomberg it was reallocating about half of its Middle East capacity, about 25 to 30 daily flights, to European leisure and city destinations such as Croatia, Spain, Portugal and Italy until September,The disruption means the Middle East’s tourism sector is losing $600m (£448m) a day in visitor spending, according to estimates from the World Travel & Tourism Council, the global trade body,Before the conflict, the body estimated that international visitors would spend about $207bn in the Middle East this year,The region’s tourism industry has grown rapidly in recent years and some of its most famous sites and hotels have been affected by the war,Iran struck the world-famous Fairmont hotel in Dubai, and debris from an intercepted drone caused a fire at the city’s famous luxury hotel, the Burj Al Arab, and Dubai’s international airport.
Light red wines for spring drinking
Can wine ever be good for you? The question has surely occurred to most of us after a night on the chȃteau de migraine, especially if we’ve read the increasingly dire warnings on alcohol consumption. Still, as with chocolate, a lot depends on what type of alcohol you drink. After all, a 90% cocoa solids situation is probably going to do less harm than, say, a family tub of Celebrations, and, while all alcohol is, I hate to break it to you, alcohol, there are definitely better choices you can make.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link
Rachel Roddy’s recipe for risotto in bianco | A kitchen in Rome
Parmigiano reggiano, grana padano, lodigiano, trentingrana and the other members of the grana-type cheese family (there are many, and all are worth seeking out) are far from cheap. Which is why it is important to use every last bit, including the rind with the last few millimetres of cheese still attached. That functions as a sort of highly flavoured and fatty stock cube that can be added to soups and stews. The best place to keep your precious rinds is in a plastic bag or airtight container in the freezer, which also preserves flavour and stops them drying out, until they’re pulled out and added directly to whatever needs a boost, or to make one of the nicest, most delicately flavoured and cheesy broths, which in turn makes a lovely risotto.I have written about risotto many times here, with each version a new favourite, and providing lessons in a dish that, regardless of how much I learn and practise, I am always chasing: the right proportions of rice to broth, as well as a pleasing consistency and texture
‘Highly problematic behavior’: Noma residency in LA starts with PR crisis
It was always going to be an indulgence for René Redzepi, the Danish-Albanian chef of Noma fame, to bring his exacting, innovative vision of haute cuisine to Los Angeles and spend several weeks tickling the palates of well-heeled diners at a hilltop estate once dubbed “the most beautiful home in Hollywood”.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The timing has certainly been unfortunate, since the US is now fighting a destabilizing war in the Middle East and food prices are climbing so steeply that many ordinary Americans can no longer afford to eat at McDonald’s, much less contemplate the counterintuitive delights of tacinga cactus, bougainvillea petals, mealworms and giant tuna eyes
Before sunrise: while Sydney sleeps, suhoor meals attract a lively social scene during Ramadan
Suhoor – the pre-dawn meal – is typically shared at home. But in Sydney customers also queue outside food trucks, restaurants and cafes with extended trading hoursIt’s just after midnight in an industrial courtyard in Auburn in Sydney’s west and a glow of string lights and the constant sizzle of a grill signal one of Ramadan’s newest late-night rituals. A food truck specialising in halal steak sandwiches has attracted a small crowd and a queue begins to form.The rest of the city is largely asleep but here the courtyard hums with life as young Muslims arrive in waves after evening taraweeh prayers, chatting and checking their phones as the clock edges closer to suhoor – the pre-dawn meal eaten during Ramadan before the day’s fast begins.Inside The Meat Up, a Lebanese husband-and-wife duo move quickly over the grill
How to use up limp herbs in a flavoured butter – recipe | Waste not
Compound butter is simply butter that’s been mixed with flavourings, both sweet and savoury, and is a tasty and easy way to give a small bunch of tired herbs new life. It can be melted over vegetables, stirred through pasta, grains or pulses, basted over meat or fish, spread on toast, or frozen in slices to use a little at a time. Think of this less as a recipe and more as a framework: taste as you go and decide whether you want something bold and explosive or a more gentle experience.Long before the TikTok revival, compound butter was something most home cooks admired on restaurant plates rather than made themselves. But it’s a really simple way to save a few tired herbs and give a meal a welcome boost, adding both serious flavour and visual impact
Chicken wings and soup: Helen Graves’ spring onion recipes
March is a tricky pin in the seasonal calendar, with energising winter citrus fading and spring’s stars yet to emerge. It’s a time when I find pleasure in reappraising ingredients that are routinely overlooked. Spring onions, say, which are often considered a garnish, but which are good for so much more. Their contrasting colourway is a clue to their varying intensity, with the white roots holding pungency and the greens more akin to especially bolshie chives. Today’s recipes harness the properties of both, bridging the gap between the current need for comfort and the warmer weather ahead
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