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At
a press conference held during the recent PATA Travel Mart in Singapore Mr
Gordon, Secretary of Tourism for the Philippines, suggested that some
governments may actually enjoy the added exposure they get from issuing
travel advisories. While
this may, or may not be true, it is high time a governing body such as
the World Tourism Organisation stood up and developed a way of
monitoring travel advisories from different countries. Of
course with such a sensitive topic, which is based on
different forms of intelligence, this will be a difficult task to
accomplish, but these difficulties must be overcome. Travel
advisories are now issued quite readily by certain countries, and they
not only confuse travellers, as there can be conflicting advice issued,
but also affect the livelihoods of millions of people. People who work and
rely on the
tourism industry as their daily means of survival. We as an industry
need a senior body of officials to monitor each country's advisory and
then to issue their own penultimate warning without any political
prejudice. Similar
to the World Health Organisation which issues travel advisories in
certain conditions, such as the recent SARS crisis, we need an
official moderator of advisories, one that is listened to by the media
and governments around the world. It
has to be said that advisories are still very much needed. There are
some definite hot spots around the world and travellers need to be
forewarned, but somebody somewhere needs to completely analyse each and
every travel advisory issued, to verify that it is accurate and not
simply over precautionary or for self benefiting means. With
today's advanced technology it is far too easy for one government to
issue an advisory to its people and for that same advisory to be read by
millions around the globe. As
the travel and tourism industry around the globe grows in importance, it
will be interesting to see who stands up to this much needed and difficult task. |
