Travel in Asia unhurt by bird-flu outbreaks

HANOI, Vietnam — Despite fresh bird flu outbreaks among poultry and new human deaths, tourists are traveling en masse across Asia during the region's peak travel season ahead of Chinese New Year.

"According to the figures from hotels, they've never known such a high occupancy rate," said Olivier Colomes, general director of Exotissimo Travel Group in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, the country hardest-hit by avian influenza. "We were really scared about this because everybody was talking about the bird flu as if it would happen tomorrow, but so far nothing has happened."

The Christmas, New Year and Lunar New Year holidays are when most international travelers visit Asia, and it's the busiest season for regional travel. Since the H5N1 strain of bird flu emerged in late 2003, winter has also been the deadliest time for the disease.

But unlike SARS in early 2003, which spread rapidly via air travel and killed nearly 800 people worldwide, bird flu has not scared visitors away. Another major difference is that the World Health Organization has not issued travel advisories warning people to avoid all nonessential trips to affected parts of Asia, as it did during SARS.

The SARS scare decimated the region's tourism industry, cutting annual international arrivals by more than 15 million and costing the region $11 billion, according to the Pacific Asia Travel Association in Bangkok, Thailand.

"I think perhaps the one only benefit of SARS is that it left people a lot more prepared," said Sally de Souza, spokeswoman for Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group in Hong Kong. "We have all these continuity plans which we can update and adapt and amend accordingly, and I think everybody just feels a little bit better prepared. SARS was such a sudden thing, really."

The bird flu virus has killed at least 76 people in eastern Asia and Turkey, but it remains hard for humans to catch, with most cases traced to contact with sick birds. Experts fear, however, that the virus could mutate into another form that spreads easily from person to person, possibly sparking a global pandemic that kills millions worldwide.

China has recently reported new poultry outbreaks, while Indonesia confirmed two new human deaths last month. Turkish health officials recently confirmed 15 people were infected with bird flu, including two children who died.

Ken Scott, director of communications for Pacific Asia Travel Association, which has more than 800 members in Asia, said the media frenzy that surrounded bird flu outbreaks at European poultry farms last fall did not affect travel in Asia as feared.