“No bookings at all”: Ravaged by conflict, how are business owners in the Middle East navigating their shattered tourism industry?

“In the last year, we’ve had four bookings,” says Fadi Kattan, a chef and business owner who opened Bethlehem’s first luxury boutique hotel, Kassa, with Palestinian-Chilean entrepreneur, Elizabeth Kassis, in 2023.

Before opening Kassa, Kattan, who splits his time between Bethlehem and London, ran a successful restaurant and a guesthouse in the occupied West Bank, both of which closed during the pandemic. While Kattan was set to reopen both venues in late 2023, the Israeli assault on Gaza meant the reopening never happened. The reality, says Kattan, is the same for most hotels in the region. And following the US and Israel’s strikes on Iran at the end of February, and Iran’s retaliatory strikes against US targets throughout the region—from Dubai to Qatar, Bahrain to Oman, the return to pre-2023 tourism figures seems further away than ever.

Over the past two years, I, like many others, have watched with a growing sense of rage, heartache and disbelief as thousands of Palestinian families have been murdered in what has been termed a genocide by major international human rights organizations (including the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors without Borders as well as a UN Commission of Inquiry and Israeli NGO B’Tselem).

In that time, most of the Gaza strip’s population of 2.1 million has been displaced, several times, and entire neighborhoods in Gaza have been leveled—in August 2025, , the UN estimated 78 percent of all structures had been destroyed or damaged. Beyond the humanitarian and environmental catastrophe, there is another, quieter catastrophe unfolding across the region—and that’s the near-total collapse of tourism. Though it may seem trivial to consider when human lives are on the line, tourism is not only a major sometimes existential source of income for many of these economies, but a sorely needed source of hope and cultural exchange.

The widening of US-Israeli bombing to Iran and many parts of Lebanon over the past few days brings fresh tragedy to a region and a tourism industry that has been suffering for years. With experts predicting the war could persist, the future is even more uncertain. Flights into and out of the region have been severely disrupted, and many global tour operators have suspended departures indefinitely, with some companies even halting departures to tourist hotspots, such as Egypt—the scale, complexity and unpredictability of the conflict proving too much of a risk. According to Skift, one Dubai hotel group is reporting 70-75 percent cancellations in the next two to three weeks because of the war.

Bethlehem, a destination deeply impacted by Israel’s campaign against Palestine, provides a grim glimpse into a potential future for many of these tourism-dependent countries. A city once teeming with travelers, a walk around town is now a surreal experience. “There used to be queues outside the Nativity Church,” says Kattan, “and people from all over the world walking around the Old City, markets, shops and restaurants buzzing with activity. The days before Ramadan would be a frenzy of shopping and buying food, but this year there was almost nothing.”

These days, Nehme barely manages to tend to his crops the way he would like or needs to. “We can only farm in shifts of four hours that we have to agree in advance with the Lebanese army and the UN,” he explains.

Kattan explains how he recently took his parents to a restaurant that would have once been heaving with tourists—it turned out they were the only diners the restaurant had seen all day. “The owner told me they have stretches of a couple of weeks with no bookings at all.”

Everyday life for Palestinians living under occupation has always been difficult, he says, but now there are more restrictions and checkpoints than ever before in the West Bank, making getting around and out of the city to farm, work or simply see relatives or friends, increasingly complicated. A trip to Ramallah, the administrative capital of Palestine, for instance, used to take an hour, but can now take a whole day. “It’s such an unknown that most people don’t want to risk it,” says Kattan. “Around Bethlehem, yellow metallic gates have been installed, which allow the [Israeli] army to close us in whenever they want. And there’s a new settlement south of Bethlehem making it even harder to get around.”

The picture has been similarly difficult in Lebanon, especially in the south of the country, which shares a border with Israel. Though not a traditional tourist hotspot, up until 2022, Lebanese-American chef and writer Bethany Kehdy used to lead week-long culinary tours in the far less-visited south, which has been under a strict ‘Do Not Travel’ advisory due to military activity near the Israeli border for the past two years.

“We would take people down to the Litani river and there were never any safety issues or risks,”  she says. “In fact, people always said visiting the south was their favorite part of the trip and an enlightening experience because they got to sit with the locals and see what their everyday experiences, struggles and aspirations were and see how similar they were to their own.”

Although there has been an official ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel since November 2024, there have been over 10,000 air and ground violations in the south committed by the latter in the past 14 months, according to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and Kehdy says she considers the south to be “under siege”. In March, the situation escalated in Lebanon too, with Israeli ground incursions into Lebanon and Israeli bombs being dropped in Beirut and even as far north as Tripoli.

In the meantime, locals are bearing the brunt of the drop in tourism. “Almost 60 percent of my income has gone,” says Mohamad Nehme, an award-winning za’atar and freekeh (an ancient Middle Eastern grain) farmer from Zawtar, in Lebanon’s south, when I spoke to him just before the latest events in Iran. Nehme, who appeared with his wife Fatima in British chef Nigel Slater’s 2018 TV series Nigel Slater’s Middle East was one of the first farmers in Lebanon to commercially grow the wild thyme needed to make za’atar—a blend of herbs native to the Levant and central to Middle Eastern cuisine and culture.

Before 2023, Nehme used to receive international academics and chefs who were interested in his pioneering farming project, plus regular visits from Kehdy’s groups of curious travelers, foodies and journalists who’d spend the day on the farm with them, learning how to prepare za’atar the traditional way before cooking and eating the fruits of their labor together.

Before leaving, visitors would often buy Nehme’s za’atar blend or the labneh (strained yogurt) and distilled oils he and Fatima made. Not now. These days, Nehme barely manages to tend to his crops the way he would like or needs to. “We can only farm in shifts of four hours that we have to agree in advance with the Lebanese army and the UN,” he explains.

But even with official permission, Nehme says they often hear the sounds of Israeli drones above them and freeze in fear. Earlier this year, when things escalated between Hezbollah and Israel, he had to relocate to the north for five months. He and all the other residents living south of the Litani river in Lebanon will have now received ‘evacuation orders from’ Israel and most probably relocated, though at the time of writing I am unable to confirm this. Despite it all, when we last spoke, he said he would never leave his land.

The number that’s being circulated is that around 250 families have already left Bethlehem in the past two years—that’s at least 1,000 inhabitants out of a city of 35,000. If tourism doesn’t come back, there is very little hope that people will stay.”

- Fadi Kattan, Bethlehem/London-based chef and entrepreneur

Even prior to the Iran conflict, tourism had all but collapsed in Jordan too, says Nabil Tarazi, Amman-based director of Eco Hotels, a company that runs the award-winning Feynan EcoLodge in the Dana Biosphere Reserve in south-central Jordan. This decline in visitors has been particularly devastating in a country where tourism is the nation’s second largest employer and its largest export sector.

“The last two years have been hell for the tourism sector because of the perception of danger and the perpetual fear stoked by the media,” says Tarazi. “In the past few months, things had been recovering and we had good bookings for the season and now all the rooms have been cancelled, again, so it’s an absolute disaster.” Many international airlines who had restarted their regional routes at the end of last year have stopped flying again, he continues—so with limited airlines flying into Jordan, and those who are flying offering reduced schedules, even those who still want to come will find it more expensive to travel.

At the 26-room, off-grid, solar-powered Feynan Ecolodge that Tarazi manages, where the bywords are sustainability, conservation and community, he witnessed the direct impact of a 70 percent drop in visitor numbers in 2024 (compared to 2023). The lodge is run as a social enterprise and owned by an NGO, the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature. While the 26 staff members have been kept on, they’ve lost the extra benefits, including tips, Tarazi explains.

Many in the community who benefited from the lodge have also been impacted. This includes the woman who makes all the bread for the lodge (up to 800 people a month, at peak times); the 17 families providing Bedouin experiences during which people learn how Bedouins live, bake bread, weave goat hair tents; and the 40-45 local drivers who shuttle guests around, as the closest paved road to the lodge is five miles (eight kilometers) away. “Every single penny the guests pay for the shuttle service goes directly to these families, and all of a sudden, the drivers are making 20 percent of what they used to make,” says Tarazi.

The fallout for communities dependent on tourism continues. “In Bethlehem, the number that’s being circulated is that around 250 families have already left the city in the past two years—that’s at least 1,000 inhabitants out of a city of 35,000,” says Kattan, “If tourism doesn’t come back, there’s very little hope that people will stay.”

As a chef who co-owns Akub, a thriving restaurant in London that sources many of its ingredients from the West Bank, and one of the founders of a company, Nabeeth, bringing Palestinian spirits and wines to UK restaurants, Kattan says he feels a sense of responsibility to do what he can for the growers and suppliers in Palestine. “I have the privilege to be able to navigate between the two spaces and I see how bad things are for people here.”

Grapes are the second most planted crop in Palestine after olives, he explains, but agricultural land is under constant threat by the occupation. “So the economics of buying Palestinian wine is enormous.” It supports the wine-makers, he says, but also all those working on the land and for the establishment indirectly—even the cardboard manufacturer who makes the boxes the wines are packed in.” Solidarity and support aside, Kattan says people should know more about and buy Palestinian wines: “They’re fantastic and some of the oldest wines in the world”.

As I write this piece, we have no idea how long the US-Israel war on Iran may last, and a fragile US-brokered ceasefire has been in place between Gaza and Israel since October 2025, yet 591 Palestinians have been killed and many more injured since it took effect, according to Gaza Health officials. Settler violence is at an all-time high in the West Bank too, with 700 Palestinians displaced in January 2026 alone, says the United Nations.

Back in Jordan, Tarazi is gloomy and warns that even if things do eventually improve, independent, unique and authentic tourism experiences will find it hard to bounce back as their impact in the local community runs so deep. “Another problem is that you also get people saying, ‘Why do I want to be involved in this tourism sector? I’m better off getting a more secure job in government,’ so it pushes good people away from the sector.”

For Tarazi, the solution is both complex and ultimately also ‘simple’. “Give Palestinians justice and the entire region will flourish,” he says. “The war has expanded but for many people in the region, that’s still the crux of the matter. What’s happening starts with the fact that there is no justice in that part of the world.”

Editor’s note: The lede of this article has been edited to more accurately describe the situation on the ground.