Asia tourism recovers from SARS
Asia’s tourism industry is still suffering the aftershocks of the SARS crisis, but business is starting to pick up and should recover by the end of the year, the head of the World Tourism Organisation predicted today.
“The last quarter of this year, the situation will be back to normal,” the group’s secretary-general, Francesco Frangialli, said in Hong Kong, which was one of the worst affected areas.
Thousands of flights were scrapped and hotels, restaurants and other businesses suffered as severe acute respiratory syndrome (known as SARS) hit Asia and the World Health Organisation warned people against travelling to infected areas.
China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam all suffered fatal outbreaks of the respiratory disease that sickened more than 8,400 people worldwide and killed some 800.
Most cases and deaths were in Asia.
SARS has now been brought under control and the industry is working hard to recover. Airlines are rebuilding their flight schedules and trying to lure back customers with discounts and cheap package deals.
Frangialli said the tourism industry is also receiving a boost from events, cancelled during the SARS outbreak, being rescheduled.
“Many conferences, conventions, exhibitions which had been postponed in March, April are now rescheduled for September, October, November,” he said.
Frangialli is in Hong Kong for a two-day conference starting on Monday for tourism officials from across Asia to plan a strategy on how to revitalise their industry.
During the height of the outbreak, Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways was losing €2.6m a day.
