Spain and Ireland Among European Destinations Vying for US Visitors as Winter Flight Plans Diverge

European tourism bodies are taking different approaches to attract American visitors, with new data showing both strong results and reasons for caution heading into winter 2026–27.

Spain led the figures from January to August 2026, recording 3,355,841 US arrivals who generated €8.225 billion in spending — an 11.6 per cent rise in arrivals and an 18.2 per cent increase in spending compared with the same period in 2025. Its Turespaña agency is running a campaign encouraging visitors to travel beyond the country's best-known cities and beaches and to come outside peak months.

Ireland used Halloween and its ancient Samhain roots as a cultural draw, with Tourism Ireland's "Home of Halloween" campaign reaching 30 million views across key markets. Separately, the agency's booking-platform partnerships generated €50 million in incremental bookings in 2025. Italy focused on food-and-wine tourism, with 30,000 US travellers making that the centrepiece of their 2025 trips and spending €42.3 million in total.

Scheduled seat data covering October 2026 to March 2027 shows winter flight capacity rising to Italy and France while falling slightly to Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom. No single European-wide strategy links these efforts; each destination is running its own campaigns and using its own partnerships.

Broader figures add context. The US National Travel and Tourism Office recorded a 1.2 per cent drop in US citizen departures to Europe in July 2026, even as total US international departures rose 2.3 per cent. A European Travel Commission survey found 27 per cent of US respondents intended to visit Europe in autumn 2026, and 66 per cent of prospective visitors across seven surveyed markets planned to travel to at least two countries on a single trip.