The Flu Factor

Forget the global recession — that’s the least of the travel trade’s worries: 2009 has been the year of the Swine Flu and it hasn’t been a good one...

The travel industry has been trapped in a pincer, but if you thought it was the economic downturn that dealt the fatal blow to travel trade prosperity, think again: H1N1 was the chief executioner.

One travel trade professional has dubbed the 2009 holiday period as the “summer without the sunshine” and the grey clouds that the H1N1 hype has created show little sign of dissipating anytime soon.

However, it is important not to generalise — business travel has been resilient to Swine Flu hysteria although corporates are admittedly still holding their purse strings tight.

The real casualty of ‘The Flu Factor’ is the leisure sector.

Holidays have been cancelled and many long-haul destinations have suffered.

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Bahrain International Travel Group general manager Paul Clabburn said the economic downturn played second fiddle to the media’s portrayal of Swine Flu this summer.

“It has been the singular most negative affecting discretionary travel this season — especially among the Arab community,” he told Arabian Travel News.

“Due to the continual referral to the pandemic, it has struck real concern into the travelling community and the effects of what may possibly befall them and their families.”

Certainly, more than the fear of contracting the actual virus, it was the worry of being quarantined in foreign countries if you had developed flu-like symptoms that was the biggest turn-off, said Clabburn.

“They simply did not want to take the risk and have all the worry and heartache that may befall a family if something happens,” he added.

“So they are staying at home or travelling to nearby GCC states where they feel more comfortable — very bad news for the travel industry at large.”

Clabburn was pessimistic about how soon bookings would recover from the flu effect given the timing of Ramadan.

“Hopefully, there will be a slight rise [in bookings] on the graph around Eid, but we need to get Swine Flu well and truly off the menu before confidence returns to a significant segment of our market,” he said.

“As the eternal pessimist I doubt if the travel industry in the GCC will see much joy until next summer at the earliest and let’s hope that by then we all still have jobs and have not caught yet another animalistic strain of flu, be it donkey, dog or even meerkat.”

Fear of contracting Swine Flu has also impacted booking lead times according to The Travel Collection managing director Jacqueline Campbell.

“What we found was that travellers throughout the Gulf had made enquiries and had an idea of where they wanted to go, but waited until the last minute to book,” she told ATN.

“What we have noticed is that Lebanon and Turkey had done well and some GCC residents are staying within the region for their holidays this year.”

AGENTS AFFECTED

Many agents told ATN that fears of contracting H1N1 had definitely impacted their leisure bookings this summer.

“We have had 30% of our bookings cancelled because of Swine Flu,” said Dubai’s Al Rais Travel branch supervisor Mohd Rafi.“The majority of these cancellations were clients who had booked holidays to The Gold Coast, Australia and the US.” However, customers had not minded travelling to South Africa, London and Paris, he added.