Last year was a record year for tourism with 1.5 billion people on the move, and industry leaders believe 2026 could be even better.

Tourist numbers reached an all-time high in 2025 despite a drop in visitors to North America due to "weak results" in the United States, according to a UN Tourism report this week.

CGTN visited the world's largest tourism fair FITUR, Madrid, where dream holidays and bucket-list destinations have been on show.

Spain had almost 100 million visitors last year. 

CGTN asked Iberia Airlines Commercial Director Maria Jesus Lopez Solas if the country could break through that milestone this year.

"I definitely think it's going to be better," she said. "Our forecast so far is that tourism will continue to grow across Spain."

That's good news for the one in ten people worldwide who work in tourism.

Globally, "Latin America is growing, and of course Asia and China will continue to grow significantly too in 2026," she added.

Iberia and Southern China Airlines collaborate

Part of that growth is visible in new partnerships like the one between Iberia and China Southern Airlines. New direct routes have been added between Europe and China with Madrid-Guangzhou flights inaugurated in December and the resumption of the London-Guangzhou direct route brought forward too.

"Last year we had more than 650,000 visitors from China coming to Spain, more than 60 percent up on the previous year, and we are continuing to expect that kind of growth," explained Lopez Solas.

"Our partner, China Southern, has just launched three frequencies between Madrid and Guangzhou," she said.

Iberia and Southern China Airlines signed a codeshare agreement in December, meaning mutual travel is easier than ever.

"We serve and we help customers from China coming to Spain, customers from Spain going to China. Not only to Guangzhou, but also to Beijing," said Lopez Solas. "There are more than seven destinations that we are serving with China Southern, a collaboration that helps us to grow the connectivity between China and Latin America too with cities like Bogota, Santiago de Chile, Mexico and many others to come."

Rising interest

Guangzhou airport is just a short hour-and-a-half hop to the tropical island of Hainan, known as China's Hawaii, which was just made a tax-free Free Trade Port (FTP), as part of the Chinese government's opening up strategy, and interest is rising.

"We're noticing that more and more people are coming to our center to ask about Hainan, about how to get there and about tourism on the island," Xu Ting Ting of the Chinese Cultural Center in Madrid told CGTN.

And getting there from Spain could get very easy very soon.

"In the near future, I'm positive that we'll have direct flights from Madrid or Spain to Hainan. We're working on it right now," Lu Yuxu of the China-Spain Tourism Office said confidently, adding that negotiations with Hainan Air are ongoing.

It seems like more people will get packing their bags in 2026, ticking off travel bucket lists, but is good news for tourism bad news for the planet?

The tourism industry as a whole is responsible for around eight percent of carbon emissions each year, so how is Iberia and the wider International Airlines Group (IAG) working towards a more sustainable future?

"IAG was the first group of airlines to express an objective for net zero emissions in 2050," responded Lopez Solas.

"We are using aircraft that are between 30 and 35 percent more efficient than what we were using 10 years ago, and we are trying to prioritize the use of SAF - Sustainable Aviation Fuel - which is going to be a very relevant driver.

"But we cannot do that alone. We want to do this with our partners and  customers collectively, and try to expand the use of SAF around the world," she said.