Syria's visitor numbers more than double in the first half of 2026
Summary: Syria welcomed 3.52 million visitors between January and June of 2026, up 111% on the same period last year. Arrivals from non-Arab countries jumped 448% while visits from Arab countries were up 107% and returning Syrians who live abroad saw a 75% increase.
Syria received 3.52 million visitors in the first half of 2026, more than double the 1.67 million recorded in the same period of 2025, according to Ministry of Tourism figures released ahead of World Tourism Day.
The fastest growth came from outside the Arab world. Arrivals of non-Arab foreign tourists rose 448% to about 719,000, while visitors from Arab countries climbed 107% to about 664,000. Syrians living abroad remain the largest group, making 2.13 million visits, up 75%. Preliminary data puts third-quarter arrivals at close to 3 million.
Tourism Minister Mazen Al Salhani told The National that growth is no longer concentrated in a single market. Turkey remains important, and demand is rising from Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, the US and Canada, as well as from Jordan, Lebanon and the Gulf. The ministry has named Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the wider GCC as priority markets. It says it will now measure the recovery by spending, length of stay, hotel occupancy, jobs and investment rather than by visitor counts alone.
Capacity is the main constraint. Syria has fewer than 20,000 hotel rooms, and nearly 60% of them are in one- and two-star properties. "Demand is growing faster than supply," Al Salhani said, putting the investment needed to rebuild the sector at around $100 billion.
A government program aims to upgrade 332 one- and two-star hotels with 10,000 rooms between them, Enterprise reported. Saudi Arabia's Ezdihar Group has moved the Beaumont Damascus, a project valued at an estimated $250 million to $300 million, into execution, but planned Seven Gates redevelopment of the former Sheraton Damascus was canceled in April.
Tour operators say the wider travel system is still catching up. Many four- and five-star hotels have no website, and international card payments were only reconnected in late August, when Visa processed its first live international transaction in the country and Mastercard and QNB completed the first Mastercard transaction there in more than 15 years. Until then, operators had struggled to collect deposits from overseas clients. The UAE-developed My Syria app, launched in July, accepts Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Air links are returning too. Emirates, flydubai, Etihad, Air Arabia, flynas, Royal Jordanian, Turkish, Pegasus, and Kuwait Airways are among the carriers now serving Syria, and national carrier Syrian Air has resumed flights to Amsterdam, Moscow, Copenhagen and Vienna.
The figures come as Damascus hosts the country's first international travel trade exhibition, the Syria Travel Show, from September 28 to 30, 2026.
