Tourism can bounce back quickly from war

War in Iraq would have a major impact on international tourism, the head of the World Tourism Organisation said yesterday, but the sector should bounce back quickly afterwards as it has done after other crises.

"It is clear that war and tourism are not compatible," Francesco Frangialli, secretary-general of the group, told a news conference at the world's biggest tourism trade fair, the International Tourism Exchange (ITB).

"We are preoccupied with the upcoming war but we are confident that the tourist industry can one more time overcome a problem like that."

During the 1991 Gulf War tourism growth slowed to 1.2 per cent but in the following year it posted a spectacular jump of 8.3 per cent, he said.

"This demonstrates the sector's capacity to react to obstacles and problems," Frangialli said.

Frangialli's optimism contrasted with gloomy news from Europe's largest travel firm TUI AG, which said booked sales for the current travel year were down over six per cent and it planned cost savings in 2003 to offset the slump in demand.

TUI chief executive Michael Frenzel told reporters at the fair that customers were waiting longer to buy tickets because of uncertainty about a possible war in Iraq.

The inter-governmental body, which welcomed Kuwait as its 140th member yesterday, reported that tourist arrivals grew by 3.1 per cent last year after they dipped slightly in 2001, the year of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Travellers' behaviour had changed in the face of September 11 and extremist attacks such as the bomb blast in Bali last October which killed 202 people, mostly tourists, he said.

Travellers preferred short-distance trips and shorter holidays, and increasingly booked last-minute trips, he said.