At the risk of being over sensitive there appears to be plenty of reason to not travel at the moment. There is the environmental guilt that we should all feel when we burn fossil fuel, we are in the midst of a "Global Financial Crisis," we learn that "only" 57 percent of all passengers on domestic flights are security checked and now we have the phenomenon of swine flu.
You can't blame the public for staying at home and hiding under the bed!
In Bill Ralston's blog today he makes comment on the swine flu hysteria:
I am still not panicking despite the Chicken Little approach adopted by virtually the entire world's media over swine flu and the World Health Organisation's upgrade of the threat level to Defcon 5 or whatever.
It was, after all, the WHO that came out with dramatically lower death toll figures than the hysterical figures coming out of Mexico. It is simply taking a wise precautionary approach and its statements on the issue are a lot saner than a media that has gone into hyper-space overdrive to milk every possible angle on a potential pandemic.Ralston also pokes fun at the precautions being taken at Auckland airport where the anti-pandemic strategy is to ask passengers if they are feeling ill.
So unless you fancy an extended stay in some three star motor lodge in Mangere, I suspect most of you would stifle that snuffling, lie and say you feel as fit as a fiddle.The cheek of the man!
Will tourism be affected with the perception of threat from swine flu? The threat for tourism is not from swine flu, but from the way the media projects the story and the restrictions and regulations that governments may impose.
Reason dictates that the odds of dying from swine flu traveling around New Zealand is on par with being struck by lightning.
Our tourism leaders need to stick their necks out and point this out to a gullable public.
