Fears about severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the virus that as of May had killed more than 550 people and infected an estimated 7,500 worldwide, have prompted many consumers to cancel trips to Asia. And catalogers selling vacations to the Far East are feeling the effects.
Berkeley, CA-based Backroads canceled its spring China trip in March when it became clear that Guangzhou, a key stop on the trip, was one of the epicenters of the disease, says Bruce Austin, trip development manager responsible for Asia.
“The Tibet trip was cancelled on April 22, the day we learned that our travel permits had been suspended by provincial Chinese authorities in control in Tibet,” Austin says. “We were told that Tibet would be closed to international travel for at least 30 days, subject to extension if SARS is still seen to be spreading within China by May 20.”
Based largely on cancellations resulting from the SARS epidemic, sales have fallen 20%-25% from last year at Boulder, CO-based Asia Transpacific Journeys, says cofounder/marketing director Marilyn Staff. What’s more, Staff says, wary travelers are booking their trips much closer to the departure date, which makes trip preparation and documentation problematic. Before Asia Transpacific Journeys can book a trip, “we need to make sure our guests have the needed paperwork completed in advance,” she says.
Asia is popular with travelers in the spring and the fall, as summer is hot and muggy throughout much of the continent, and in southern Asia, it’s the monsoon season. But even fall bookings are feeling the heat from SARS. At San Francisco-based Geographic Expeditions, “fall bookings have dropped dramatically” to Asian destinations, reports president Jim Sano. As a result of SARS, the travel cataloger no longer uses Hong Kong as a gateway for its trans-Pacific trips. Instead, it primarily uses the Narita International Airport near Tokyo and also routes travelers through Frankfurt, Germany, and Delhi, India.
Fortunately, although catalog customers may be shying away from certain trips because of SARS, they’re not afraid to travel in general. For instance, Geographic Expeditions’ bookings to Japan have increased slightly. Travel to Japan “is perceived to be safer” than traveling to or through SARS-infected China, Sano says.
In general, customers who book vacations to exotic locales such as China’s Silk Road or the mountains of Tibet are “well traveled and have a better perspective to calibrate the risks of traveling overseas,” Sano says. They also tend to be fairly well heeled, since most of the trips offered by travel catalogers to Asia exceed $2,000 a week.
That’s probably why most catalogers that specialize in exotic vacations are taking SARS in stride. “It’s the nature of the business we’re in,” says Barbara Banks, director of marketing and new trip development for Wilderness Travel, which in April rerouted travelers through South Korea for a destination in Mongolia. (The pre-SARS itinerary meant traveling through Hong Kong and Beijing.) “We’re used to dealing with epidemics and earthquakes and the like,” Banks says. “It seems like there is always something.”