Tour operators fear cancellations as UAE issues travel advisory

Say move could impact leisure, business travel

Tourist arrivals from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) might be impacted with the UAE government advising its citizens against travelling to India in view of the swine flu outbreak.

Homa Mistry, chief executive officer, Trail Blazer Tours India, said: “UAE is an important market for us. While business visitors come round the year, we receive leisure tourists during winter and June-August. The Emiratis   mostly visit Mumbai, Kerala and Goa. They are high spenders and the average length of stay is a week or longer. While we don’t see a significant impact immediately, there could be cancellations if the swine flu outbreak is not brought under control.”

Other travel agents, however, said the UAE government’s advisory could have a spiralling impact.

Richa Goyal Sikri, director, STIC Travel Group, said: “This advisory will impact not only business from the UAE but also from other countries. This is something that needs to be taken seriously. Otherwise, it could spiral out of control with advisories being issued by other countries. This will impact leisure travel and, if not controlled, could impact business travel as well.”

Seema Makhija, director, Travel Voyages, said: “Gulf countries are an important source market for medical tourism and the advisory will have a negative impact on arrivals.”

In 2013, India received 51,513 tourists from the UAE accounting for 0.74 per cent of all arrivals. In 2014, as many as 7.7 million foreign tourists visited India - a growth of 10.6 per cent over 2013. The tourism ministry is yet to release country-wide arrival data for 2014.

“Incidents of swine flu are isolated and restricted to certain pockets of India,” said Arjun Sharma, chairman, Le Passage to India. “There is unnecessary hype, which is ruining the already-fragile image of the country.”

“It is very crucial that the industry, together with the support of the government, manages perception at this time,” said Mario Habig, CEO (inbound business), Le Passage to India.

According to health ministry data, about 1,000 persons have died because of swine flu and 20,000 have tested positive for the illness. Gujarat and Rajasthan have reported the highest number of cases.