It has never been as easy or as affordable to travel the world as it is today, but headlines of faraway wars, crime, insurrections, terrorist attacks, diseases and natural disasters can be enough to make the average tourist think twice.
Much information about worldwide turmoil is posted online at www.travel.state.gov — the State Department's Web site for travel-related warnings, with additional information about what the site says about every country in the world. Not only do many travelers check the site before making travel plans, many travel agencies and tour companies also monitor it and some send its warnings to clients who are bound for any of the world's hot spots.
Most of the 28 countries on the State Department's "travel warning" list last week were not likely to be surprises to anyone who follows the news, since many have been there for two years or more. The current crop of countries considered unsafe includes Afghanistan, Albania, Burundi, Colombia, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Macedonia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Tajikistan, Yemen and Yugoslavia.
There were 29 other nations on the State Department's "public announcements" list, which does not recommend avoidance but instead is intended to get out information quickly about "terrorist threats and other relatively short-term conditions that pose significant risks or disruptions to Americans." Countries on this list include Haiti, Nepal, China and Northern Ireland, all of which have been beset by problems that might affect tourists ranging from arrest to assassination to anniversaries of specific terrorist events.
Like the travel warnings, the State Department's public announcements and consular information sheets (with information about every country, often including immigration policy, health conditions, customs regulations and drug penalties) are also at www.travel.state.gov.
In view of recent terrorist attacks in Israel, it is not surprising that among the current travel warnings is "Israel, the West Bank and Gaza." This updated warning, posted last Jan. 12, advises Americans to defer visiting there because of "a heightened threat of terrorist incidents," including terrorist bombings.
One of those bombings, outside a Tel Aviv nightclub in June, killed 20 patrons and the bomber. Another suicide bombing, on July 16, killed two Israeli soldiers in a northern town, Binyamina.
What the January travel warning describes as "violent clashes and confrontations" continuing throughout the West Bank and Gaza have crippled much of the Israeli tourism industry. According to Israel's tourism ministry, the industry has lost $1.5 billion since last September as the number of foreign tourists plunged to 583,500 from January through May of this year compared with 1.14 million over the same period in 2000.
This decline led three major Jewish organizations to take out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times in June urging Americans to visit Israel to show solidarity with the people and the state of Israel and to "let the world know that the terrorists will not succeed."
But the unrest in the region is likely to continue depressing tourism. Maupintour, the large tour operator in Lawrence, Kan., whose founder, Tom Maupin, led escorted tours to the Holy Land in the 1950s, offered an Israel tour for 2001, but it got no bookings. So it switched its 2002 tour from Israel to Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.
"Our Israel program suffered and never took off," said Carol Snyder, the company's spokeswoman, "because it was obvious in the news that it was not safe there unless there was a permanent stop to the violence between the Israelis and Palestinians."
Also citing volatility in the region, the Seabourn Cruise Line recently substituted Alexandria, Egypt, for scheduled stops at Haifa, Israel, this year and next. Also, instead of the Seabourn Sun's calling at Haifa; Beirut, Lebanon; and Tartus, Syria, on its world cruise next year, as originally scheduled, the ship will call at Antalya, Turkey; the Greek island of Rhodes; and Valletta, Malta.
Radisson Seven Seas shifted two Seven Seas Navigator voyages this fall — one departing Oct. 31, the other Nov. 11 — from calls in Israel to Alexandria. Next April, on its world cruise, the Navigator will stop at Athens and Taormina, Sicily, instead of Ashdod, Israel.
The various State Department missives warn not just about conflict but also note, for example, that "Portugal has one of the highest rates of automobile accidents and fatalities in Europe." About Mexico, the department says "robberies and assaults on passengers in taxis are frequent and violent, with passengers subjected to beatings, shootings and sexual assault." In southern France, it states, "thefts from cars stopped at red lights are common, particularly in the Nice-Antibes-Cannes area and in Marseille."
Some travel and tourist industry officials are critical of the State Department warnings. A. Ady Gelber, the president of New York-based Isram World of Travel, which has run escorted tours to Israel for the past 34 years, contends that the warnings "are more reflective of political issues than the safety questions they purport to address."
Gelber added: "The political announcements are all too often rigid, inaccurate and passe. The government interests are not always focused on realities on the ground but the climate in the negotiating arena. For example, despite constant IRA terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom, and attacks by Basque separatists in Spain, no warning against travel to the U.K. or Spain has ever been issued."
Mark S. Conroy, president of Radisson Seven Seas Cruises, is also critical, describing the State Department warnings as "a two-edged sword" that in many cases "do more harm than good." Examples he cited include the June 27 travel warning for Indonesia. "There are dangers in the region," Conroy added, "but in places like Bali there have been no problems and tourists are safe, but the destination has suffered."
Faced with similar complaints over the years, the State Department has consistently denied them. Despite the attention the warnings and advisories receive from the travel industry and many individual travelers, some never even bother to look at them.
For example, Sue Redhair of Dallas, the benefits and compensation manager for Omni Hotels, has little interest in the warnings because, she said, "I can't think of almost any place I wouldn't go."
In addition to taking her niece to London this April at the height of the foot-and-mouth-disease outbreak, Redhair was in Israel for almost two weeks in March to sing with other members of the choir of the First Baptist Church in Dallas. Despite news reports of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians while she was there she was not overly concerned because, she said, "I think a lot of the violence we hear about or are warned about is blown out of proportion."
Despite the many cautions about travel to the Middle East, individual travelers and tour groups still go there and more often than not come back safe and satisfied. "In 34 years of uninterrupted tourism to Israel," Gelber said, "we have never lost a single tourist."
Richard and Connie Adams of Mill Valley, Calif., said they enjoyed their visit to Syria, Jordan and Lebanon in April with Geographic Expeditions of San Francisco. Although Lebanon is on the State Department Travel Warning list, and despite its numerous military checkpoints and more leftover devastation than the Adamses expected to see, Adams, a real estate developer, said, "We were impressed by the renovation in downtown Beirut, by the beauty of the country, especially in the north, and by the warmth and welcoming in all three countries.
Veteran travelers like Jim Sano, the president of Geographic Expeditions, suggests that travelers prepare for visits to remote or dangerous areas by reading the State Department warnings and advisories, and by seeking information elsewhere on the Internet, like English-language newspapers in or about a country they plan to visit.
Other travelers suggest checking the Web sites of the British www.fco.gov.uk/travel and Australian governments www.dfat.gov.au/consular/advice before they visit a country about which they have safety concerns for another point of view.