NEW YORK -- When bad news strikes a foreign destination, the travel
agent should be prepared to serve as the client's most objective
advisor, letting him know of potential risks but also keeping the
situation in perspective if it appears exaggerated in the mass
media.
That was the consensus of an industry panel speaking to Travel
Weekly's Europe 2000 conference at New York's Marriott Marquis
Hotel, assembled to discuss crisis management for overseas
destinations.
"None of us has the resources to turn public opinion around"
when clients hear of civil unrest, political turmoil, terrorism or
natural disasters, said Bob Drumm, president of General Tours in
Keene, N.H.
But by keeping a "constant stream" of objective information
flowing into the marketplace, suppliers and agents can minimize
damage to tourism when it isn't warranted.
Indeed, Travel Weekly's most recent consumer survey found that
agents rank high as sources among consumers for domestic and
international precautionary travel advisories, ahead of newspapers
and the State Department.
If there is a positive aspect to bad news about foreign
destinations, Drumm said, it is that the U.S. travel market seems
to bounce back faster now than it used to. "None of it sticks very
long any more," he said. "There's always something else to push it
out of the headlines."
Drumm cited the example of Egypt, where terrorists attacked
tourists in Luxor in November 1997, killing more than 50.
General Tours suspended operations to Egypt at the time, he
said, and yet today, tourism to that country has not only
recovered, but is at record levels.
Part of the agent's task must be to educate clients on
geography, letting them know that a problem in one country doesn't
mean the entire region is off limits, said Nazli Weiss, vice
president of marketing for Atlas Tours of Croatia.
She said that with the long-simmering conflict in neighboring
Bosnia finally over, Croatia had been expecting "a banner year" for
tourism in 1999, but then the Kosovo war began.
That war did not involve Croatia either, but "unfortunately, the
perception [among U.S. consumers] was that it was not safe," she
said, and many tours and groups canceled.
However, when the bombing stopped, the market was "quick to
rebound," she added, noting that Windstar Cruises resumed port
calls to Croatia's Adriatic coast almost immediately.
"We're trying to get the word out on a limited budget that the
destination is safe," Weiss said, especially by educating the trade
and consumer press and working through professional organizations
like ASTA and the Society of Incentive Travel Executives.
Turkey is currently facing a similar dilemma after suffering
serious earthquakes this fall, said Oguz Yurteri, deputy attache at
the Turkish Tourist Office in New York.
Tourist sites in Istanbul and elsewhere in the country were
spared, he noted, and yet the massive coverage given to the quakes
on CNN and in other media left the impression that the entire
country was in ruins.
He said the tourist office is hoping for a large budget increase
next year so it can double its spending on advertising and
marketing to get the word out about the true condition of Turkey's
tourist attractions.
Lucy Hirleman, of Berkshire Travel in Newfoundland, N.J., said
that in her experience, overseas incidents tend to be "overblown by
the mass media," and she urged government tourist boards to provide
more timely updates for travel agents when crisis strikes.
Tourist boards should enhance their Web sites, she said, by
adding "secure areas for agents to go to, where the public doesn't
have access." And in those secure areas, they should "just give us
the facts, no pretty prose," Hirleman said.