Claudia Goldner would rather spend her vacation diving in Central America than see Rome's 19-century-old Colosseum.
Goldner, 26, is one of thousands of Americans who plan to stay closer to home in coming months as the war in Iraq revives terrorism fears and European governments' stance against the military campaign makes visitors feel unwelcome.
``We'd rather do the European trips when the world is not fighting and when the locals are friendlier,'' said Goldner, a US-based market researcher. She plans to scuba dive and go spelunking in Belize instead. The number of US tourists visiting Italian cities has halved since the war began. Travel companies Thomas Cook AG and Club Mediterrannee SA say reservations have slumped. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is cutting as many as 3,000 jobs as bookings drop.
"The war. The terrorism. The global economic slump. It's a lethal cocktail," said Bernabo Bocca, president of Confturismo, which represents Italian hotels and tour operators.
Goldner and others will probably hurt the European Union's economy, which gets about 6 percent of its gross domestic product from tourism, analysts say. Already, the European Commission has trimmed its growth forecast to 1 percent for this year, down from an earlier estimate of 1.8 percent.
For European airlines alone, the war will reduce operating profit by an estimated US$2.5 billion this year, according to the Association of European Airlines.
France and Germany were the most vocal opponents to the US-led military campaign. In Milan, Italy's second-largest city, rainbow-colored flags with the word "pace," or peace, hang from thousands of windows. The war has lasted 19 days so far. Allied forces attacked the center of Baghdad yesterday, taking control of government buildings and suggesting the fighting may end soon.
For tour operators, though, "it's too late for the whole year" because terrorism fears will linger and most people have now made their summer holiday plans, said Mark Brumby, an analyst at Oriel Securities in London.
In France, the world's No.1 tourist destination, US travellers are forgoing the chance to see the Eiffel Tower and eat the genuine Roquefort cheese at half the price they'd pay at home.
The tourism ministry estimates that the number of foreigners visiting France this year will fall from 76.7 million last year. Fifty-four percent of travel agents organizing day trips in Paris say bookings are declining and April is looking "very bad."
"Our clients are in wait-and-see mode," said Stephane Vidal, head of investor relations at Club Mediterrannee, Europe's largest resort operator. "This year will not be a good year," said Louis Frankenhuis, the Chief Executive Officer of TUI Nederland, the Dutch unit of Europe's largest vacation company, TUI AG. Bookings at the division are down about 20 percent since January.
Rival Thomas Cook, Europe's No.2 travel company, says bookings are down by as much as 10 percent. Six Continents Plc, which owns the InternContinental hotel chain, plans to fire some of its 2,700 workers at the lodging division to cut costs.
"I don't feel comfortable taking a plane anywhere," said Lynne Laub, a 63-year-old American psychoanalyst who cancelled a trip to Europe last week. "There will be retaliation for the war in Iraq. They're not just going to allow us to bomb their country to pieces without fighting back."
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