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World Tourism Organization predicts double-digit fall in travel

Opening its biennial conference on Monday, the World Tourism Organization put the best face on what it acknowledged were "difficult times," predicting 1.5 percent growth in worldwide tourism this year despite sudden drops in tourism after the terrorist attacks in the US.

"In the short term, the industry was severely hit," said Francesco Frangialli, secretary-general of the organization, opening an assembly attended by representatives of 118 of the group's 135 member nations. Frangialli said the industry had been likely to post 3 percent for the year before the terror attacks and the sharp falloff in travel that followed. Now it foresees double-digit drops in the last quarter of this year and the first quarter of next year, compared to the same quarters a year earlier.

Now the tourism industry faces the challenge of overcoming in the traveling public's mind the searing image of four hijacked planes plunging to earth as suicide missiles. Frangialli and other delegates at the meeting expressed guarded optimism.

"We have had the experience of overreaction before," Frangialli said.

"A lot depends on military developments and the global economy. But we maintain our vision for the long term of 1 billion tourist arrivals in the year 2020 and 1.5 billion in 2020."

The impact of the terror attacks would have been far worse, he said, if they had come during the summer tourist season. "For many countries, the peak season is over," he said.

The World Tourism Organization, a UN-affiliated body based in Madrid, issued a lengthy analysis of the impact of the attacks before the opening ceremony of the conference. Seoul and Osaka, Japan, were chosen as sites for the conference because the final rounds of the World Cup soccer tournament will be held in South Korea and Japan next year; the meeting shifts to Osaka on Friday.

The issue of terrorism and the impact of the attacks was the consuming topic for delegates. Because the airline industry was already slumping before the attacks, the question now is "how long will we feel the effect," said Peter Shackleford, regional representative for Europe. "If it's a blip, we can cope with it. If it's longer, it will be difficult."
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