Tourism has bounced back from past crises with remarkable speed. People do not abandon travel plans lightly. Market research suggests that in large areas of the developed world, holidays are regarded now as regular necessities rather than occasional luxuries.
"If travel is down one year," says Francesco Frangialli, secretary general of the World Tourism Organisation, "then pent-up demand will result in extraordinary growth the next year."
When terrorists killed tourists near Luxor, in Egypt, in 1997, it seemed Egypt's tourist industry would be in the wilderness for many years. Yet just two years later the country attracted 4.45m international visitors, a 40% increase over the 1998 total and significantly more than the 3.675m who went in 1996.
The Federation of Tour Operators, which represents 12 leading British holiday companies, points out that bookings taken by travel agents for summer 1991, in the wake of the Gulf war, dropped by only 4%. It echoes Frangialli's optimism, noting that while customers may put off booking, "package holidays are seen as an important part of consumer spending patterns and such events have tended to have little impact on the season as a whole".
September 11 will cast a longer shadow. It may be much harder for travellers to rationalise its attacks as isolated events. The apparently open-ended retaliatory action against the Taliban and the anthrax scare have created a sense that this crisis is not finite. Future hijackings will not end bloodlessly.
The immediate impact has already been felt more widely even than that of the war against Iraq. Tourists have been deterred from flying to the US, not just from it. Worldwide demand for flights, hotel rooms and other travel services dropped by around 30% in the first few weeks, although some of that was caused by grounding of flights to and from US airports. In Britain, air package holiday bookings are reckoned to have fallen 32% for the coming winter and 34% for next summer.
If business does not pick up dramatically by the start of next year many travel firms will go out of business. Those specialising in holidays to the US or to Islamic countries face a difficult autumn. Mainstream British tour operators, dealing in the conventional Mediterranean beach package, have a little more time, but not much. They have already failed to get the last-minute business they would normally hope for at the end of the summer season, and while they generally expect to lose money in winter, losses are likely to be heavier than usual. It will be more essential than ever that they make healthy profits next summer.
In an ordinary year, about one in five Britons booking packages through agents would have already done so. September should have produced 6%. October, November and December are slower, producing only about 10% between them, fewer than a million customers. January, when 14% book, is crucial. Even in good years, operators drum up business around Christmas with careful discounts. If bookings have not picked up appreciably by then, dramatic price cuts may not be enough. Agents will be forced to prune flights and yet more staff to balance their books.
But the impact of this crisis extends far beyond British bookings. Tourism has become one of the world's biggest industries. The World Travel and Tourism Council, a forum for industry leaders, calculates that it accounts for 11% of global GDP and employs, directly or indirectly, more than 200m people. Global tourism GDP and expenditure figures include leisure, business and other forms of travel, including trips to see friends or relatives, or those made for health or religious reasons. Holiday travel accounted for about 60% of that total last year.
The council fears that a 10% drop in demand over the next year could cost 8.8m jobs worldwide; 1.1m are at risk in the US, 1.2m in the EU and 190,000 in the UK.
When Americans stop travelling, the economies of most countries suffer. Last year they spent $65bn (£45bn),or 13.7% of worldwide expenditure on tourism. Germans, the second-biggest spenders, spent $47.6bn and the British $36.6bn. Each time a cruise ship calls at a Caribbean island, its 2,000, mainly American, passengers spend almost $259,000 ashore.
For Britain's incoming tourism industry, already depressed by the foot and mouth epidemic, a prolonged absence of Americans will be disastrous. The British Tourist Authority estimates that the new crisis will wipe another £1bn off earnings in the current financial year. With £1.5bn already lost because of the epidemic, that will lower the earnings from last year's £12.5bn to £10bn.
The accuracy of that prediction will depend on how long the Americans stay away. They are our most lucrative customers. The Gulf war saw a decline of almost one third in visits from the US, from just under 3m in 1990 to 2.3m in 1991. This time, it is likely to prove much more difficult to lure Americans from hearth and home. The UK industry must hope that anecdotal evidence, which suggests the British may be more inclined to holiday at home, thereby compensating, is accurate.
Outside the US, fear of travel may be easier to allay. The great unknown is, how long will the crisis continue? If there are no more terrorist attacks, if the anthrax panic recedes and retaliation against the Taliban achieves its aims, it may only be months. If not, tourism's past ability to shrug off such international calamities may set an unreliable precedent.
