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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (30308)	3/28/2003 2:17:25 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Tourism in Asia, Jay I think you get a chance to come eat the pizza you won as the US invaded. Fears of War and Illness Hurt Tourism in Asia Reuters nytimes.com By DAVID BARBOZA BANGKOK, March 27 — The war in Iraq and the outbreak of a mysterious respiratory ailment that began in China are combining to wreak havoc on tourism in Asia, and are threatening to weaken economies throughout this region. Leading airlines are scaling back operations in Asia. Major hotel chains are reporting an unusual number of cancellations. And tourist agencies all over the continent say that travelers are increasingly reluctant to come to this part of the world. The Rolling Stones decided not to play scheduled concert dates in Hong Kong on Friday and Saturday. French and Italian teams dropped out of this week's Rugby Sevens tournament, one of Hong Kong's biggest sporting events. And some of the glitterati scheduled to attend Fashion Week in Shanghai next month have decided that visiting Asia is no longer fashionable. "This has definitely affected the city," said Tina Liu, communications manager at the Grand Hyatt in Shanghai. "We're experiencing cancellations — more from the virus than the war." Tourism officials in China, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and elsewhere say they are suffering from the effects of a travel slowdown. Economists are warning that further depression in tourism would start to undermine related industries like restaurants and entertainment, sapping economic growth in the world's most populous region. "This is a double whammy for Asia," said Stephen Roach, the chief economist at Morgan Stanley. "China — no matter what people tell you — doesn't have domestic demand growth. They are dependent on the U.S. market, and the U.S. is facing a slowdown and a possible recession. If you combine that with a loss of tourist income in Asia, you've got a rough situation." Financial markets appear to be expecting losses to pile up. Shares of travel and leisure companies that do significant business in Asia tumbled yesterday on the Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore and Shanghai stock exchanges. Shares of airlines like Cathay Pacific Airways, Qantas, Japan Airlines and Singapore Airlines were hit hard this week after several of them said they were experiencing a high level of cancellations and announced plans to cut flights. Shares of Star Cruises, the world's fourth-biggest cruise ship operator, and Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, the world's biggest hotelier, have also been depressed. The causes of these effects are simple: Tourists and business travelers are worried that terrorists may retaliate for the fighting in Iraq, and they are worried about exposing themselves to the mysterious and deadly disease that has already killed 50 people and infected more than 1,000 in 14 countries around the world, mostly in Asia. The fears are easy to understand, travel experts say, given the images blanketing television sets around the world: American and British soldiers wearing gas masks in Iraq and ordinary people in Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam wearing surgical masks in airports and shopping districts. Tourism officials say most of the drop-off in bookings is in long-haul travel — visitors who planned to come to Asia from the United States and Europe, for example. "About 10 days ago, we started seeing sensitivity to the virus," said Mark Lettenbichler, chairman of the Hong Kong Hotels Association. "Then four days later, when the war started, we saw even more cancellations." There had been some preparation. A few weeks ago, during the buildup to the war in Iraq, some tourist officials in Asia began planning for what might happen to the industry. The conventional wisdom was that many Westerners would postpone trips to Asia because the prospect of war often tightens pocketbooks. Tourism officials here hoped intra-regional travel would make up for the drop. But now Asians, too, fear Asia. The Chinese are afraid to go to Hong Kong; people in Hong Kong are afraid to go to Singapore; and Singaporeans are afraid of visiting Vietnam. The rest of Asia fears them all, because they are the places most affected by what has come to be called severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. Tourism officials say it is still too early to tell how severe the tourism downturn will be, but the early figures are grim. In Hong Kong, hotel bookings are down by 25 to 30 percent, according to the Hong Kong Hotels Association. The Thai Hotel Association cites a 10 to 15 percent increase in cancellations. And in Singapore, visitor arrivals fell 9 percent in the first three weeks of March, the Singapore Tourism Board said.