Swine Flu’s impact on the Travel Industry

swine-flu
Swine Flu, also known as influenza A (H1N1) has currently reached a pandemic status, which means not only is it affecting large parts of the originating country Mexico, but cases have also been identified around the world. The World Health Organisation has now officially confirmed Swine Flu has reached alert level Phase 5, which means it is rapidly spreading via person-to person contact, but as yet no fatalities have been recorded outside of Mexico.

Travel Restrictions
WHO and leading health authorities around the world are not advising any travel restrictions to affected countries, but all non-essential travel to Mexico has been advised against and several tour operators to this country have temporarily suspended their flights to Mexico.

Impact of Tourism in Mexico
The tourism industry in Mexico has been badly hit by swine flu, and not only are airlines and hotels suffering from cancelled trips but many other businesses associated with tourism are
also affected, and many public areas and attractions have been completely closed such as theatres, cinemas, museums and art galleries. UK travel brokers TUI Travel, Virgin Holidays and Thomas Cook have cancelled all of their flights and package holidays to Mexico during the peak of the outbreak, and several countries such as Argentina and Cuba have also suspended all flights from Mexico during this time.

Business travel is also a big earner for flight companies, hotels and associated businesses, and this has also been badly affected by the outbreak of swine flu. The National Business Travel Association (NBTA) recently published a survey regarding the impact of swine flu on business travel, finding that as much as 61% of business travellers are cancelling their trips to Mexico in response to the outbreak in the country

Impact of Tourism in USA
The USA has a tourism industry worth over 770 billion dollars a year, and its close proximity to Mexico has made many tour operators, hotel owners and members of the travel industry very nervous. As yet no fatalities have been recorded in the country, but many USA tour operators do big business out of the beautiful beaches and resorts of Mexico, and already they are showing a dramatic decline in summer bookings, with as many as 75% of customers cancelling flights and beach resort holidays during the late spring period. This is bad news for the US travel industry, which was already suffering from falling profits due to the global recession. USA tour operators will be waiting to see how the swine flu outbreaks pans out, and there are fears that not only will the international visitors be scared away from US resorts, but also domestic travel will slow down and as this accounts for over 90% of the airline industry total revenue this could be a huge blow for the US travel economy.

Impact of Tourism the rest of the World
Travel Authorities have reported the impact of swine flu on tourism in the rest of the world have so far been negligible, and although flights and holidays at the end of April and beginning of May did dip slightly, things are picking up again for the summer and it is very much business as usual in most countries.

Did pig flu made you reconsider your vacation plans? Why?