Team Spain celebrate during the awarding ceremony after the final match between Spain and Argentina at the 2026 FIFA World Cup at the New York New Jersey Stadium, the United States, July 19, 2026. (Xinhua/Li Ming)

The 2026 FIFA World Cup came to a close, with Spain lifting the trophy for the first time in 16 years. Within hours, the victory sent people's travel interest soaring. Data from the online travel platform Qunar on Monday showed that the searches for flights to Spain spiked sharply following the final whistle.

As of 9:00 am on Monday, search volume for flights to Barcelona jumped 1.6 times compared to the previous hour. The Shenzhen-Barcelona route saw a staggering 33-fold increase hour-over-hour. Meanwhile, searches from Kunming, Qingdao, and Guiyang to Barcelona also grew rapidly, with Kunming-Barcelona queries rising 10-fold week-over-week, according to the data sent from the platform.

For Madrid, search interest from Chongqing was up 1.9 times compared to the same period last week. Kunming and Jinan both recorded eightfold increases in searches for flights to Madrid, while Wuhan-Madrid queries grew sixfold.

Notably, the buzz extended beyond Spain's two major gateway cities. Searches for flights to Málaga on the Costa del Sol surged 10.5 times week-over-week. The Canary Islands' Tenerife saw a 19-fold weekly jump and a fivefold increase from the previous hour alone.

According to analysts at Qunar's big data research institute showed that multiple Chinese cities already offer direct flights to Spain, with Beijing and Shanghai providing nonstop connections to Madrid or Barcelona. The championship victory coincides with the peak summer outbound travel season, and the surge in interest is expected to boost long-haul European travel.

Argentina also drew significant attention. Qunar data showed that as of 9:00 am on July 20, searches for Guangzhou-Buenos Aires flights rose 6.5 times week-over-week, while queries from Xiamen and Fuzhou increased by 6.5 times and 4 times, respectively. 

Data from industry platform Umetrip sent to the Global Times showed that search interest in flights to Spain surged. As of 4 pm on Monday, flight searches for Barcelona increased by approximately 60 percent compared with the previous day, while flight searches for Madrid rose by more than 70 percent. Among domestic departure cities, Beijing recorded the highest search volume for flights to both Barcelona and Madrid.

Global Times