How swine flu affects the tourism industry...
In the months following the spread of Mexico's swine flu outbreak to other countries, airline stocks in the U.S fell by 15 percent, Mexico's tourism industry was decimated and tour operators over the board reported dips in profits. Airports, hotels and cruise operators have been the biggest losers with people either cancelling holidays to at-risk destinations, or deciding not to book in the first place.
Image credit: Flickr
As a result hotel operators in Mexico have had to fork out a lot of money on sanitisation. Door knobs are regularly wiped, hotel staff are ordered to wash their hands every half hour and all other furniture and linen is stringently cleaned or otherwise decontaminated.
Almost every business, most government offices and many public services such as museums and schools have been closed in a bid to contain the virus and this only serves to deter even more visitors. There are those that estimate that Mexico has lost over one billion dollars since the swine flu outbreak began.
As for the USA, all accusations that America was using the swine flu pandemic to boost its own tourist industry at the expense of Mexico's were blown out of the water when airlines, hotels and cruise liners began posting their profits for that quarter. With many nations such as Italy, Poland, Venezuela and Hong Kong advising against travel to America, the U.S tourism industry has seen major downturn this year.
As for Canada, travel to this country from just about every continent is down by about 10-20%. Insiders from the tourism industry in Canada, and most of the other countries, are desperately hoping to make up the numbers with domestic tourism; visitors from one part of Canada to another. With countries such as Canada this is unlikely, although still far more probable than with smaller countries such as Mexico.
So are there any countries that haven't seen a downturn in their tourist industry? Oddly enough, the Turkish government ascribes the decrease in the amount of reservations in their resorts and hotels is due to economic downturn and not the swine flu pandemic. Turkey has so far suffered less from swine flu than most other countries in the world, and so is well placed to receive safety-conscious Muslim tourists from other countries.
It seems that those countries who have been least affected are bolstering their tourist figures this year by picking up some of those tourists avoiding the more seriously affected countries. In fact, Egyptian authorities have actually been turning away tourists travelling on a connecting flight from Cairo to Mecca in an attempt to contain the disease.
Of course, as the disease is likely to continue to spread, a quick recovery in the hotel and leisure sector is unlikely. The best we can hope for is to weather the storm, catering to those travellers who are willing to take the risk, and making sure that they remain uncontaminated during their stay.
Image credit: Flickr
As a result hotel operators in Mexico have had to fork out a lot of money on sanitisation. Door knobs are regularly wiped, hotel staff are ordered to wash their hands every half hour and all other furniture and linen is stringently cleaned or otherwise decontaminated.
Almost every business, most government offices and many public services such as museums and schools have been closed in a bid to contain the virus and this only serves to deter even more visitors. There are those that estimate that Mexico has lost over one billion dollars since the swine flu outbreak began.
As for the USA, all accusations that America was using the swine flu pandemic to boost its own tourist industry at the expense of Mexico's were blown out of the water when airlines, hotels and cruise liners began posting their profits for that quarter. With many nations such as Italy, Poland, Venezuela and Hong Kong advising against travel to America, the U.S tourism industry has seen major downturn this year.
As for Canada, travel to this country from just about every continent is down by about 10-20%. Insiders from the tourism industry in Canada, and most of the other countries, are desperately hoping to make up the numbers with domestic tourism; visitors from one part of Canada to another. With countries such as Canada this is unlikely, although still far more probable than with smaller countries such as Mexico.
So are there any countries that haven't seen a downturn in their tourist industry? Oddly enough, the Turkish government ascribes the decrease in the amount of reservations in their resorts and hotels is due to economic downturn and not the swine flu pandemic. Turkey has so far suffered less from swine flu than most other countries in the world, and so is well placed to receive safety-conscious Muslim tourists from other countries.
It seems that those countries who have been least affected are bolstering their tourist figures this year by picking up some of those tourists avoiding the more seriously affected countries. In fact, Egyptian authorities have actually been turning away tourists travelling on a connecting flight from Cairo to Mecca in an attempt to contain the disease.
Of course, as the disease is likely to continue to spread, a quick recovery in the hotel and leisure sector is unlikely. The best we can hope for is to weather the storm, catering to those travellers who are willing to take the risk, and making sure that they remain uncontaminated during their stay.
posted by Admin at
10:21
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