World tourism industry caught between crisis and flu
Volatility unleashed by the global economic crisis and the swine flu
epidemic is hitting the travel industry hard, prompting deep concern
among participants at a world tourism conference that opened in Brazil
on Friday.
International tourism risks sliding heavily if the H1N1 swine flu
spread is upgraded to a pandemic, an economist at Britain's Oxford
Economics firm, John Walker, told AFP.
The number of passengers could drop "up to 60 percent," he said.
"The probability of a full blown pandemic is relatively low, but
there might be another outbreak in full force of swine flu in the next
winter in the northern hemisphere," Walker said.
The economic crisis, meanwhile, could be more devastating to the
sector in the United States and Europe than expected, some participants
said.
Latin America, host for the first time to the tourism conference
organized by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), seemed to be
sheltered from the worst of the crisis, however.
Over the first two months of 2009, the number of travelers in the
world has decreased 7.7 percent compared to the same period in 2008,
according to the World Tourism Organization. That was worse than the
body's forecast of a drop of 2.0 percent.
"We are unable to see ahead. If we finish the year with a drop of
less than five percent we can say we held up OK," the WTO undersecretary
general, Geoffrey Lipman, said.
Projections were further clouded by the added impact of swine fly, he
said. "Who can say whether one tourist or another has canceled a trip
because of fears of the flu, or because he couldn't pay household
expenses."
One point is certain: Mexico has borne the brunt of the effects of
the H1N1 virus.
Near-empty hotels in the tourist beach resort of Cancun have been
forced to offer three years of free vacations to any tourist who might
become infected by the disease while staying there.
"Right now it looks like a relatively benign epidemic. There was no
very violent spread like happened with SARS" in 2003, the head of the
WTTC, Jean-Claude Baumgarten, said.
AFP |