Those alarming travel alerts – what do we do?

A report in The Sunday Telegraph’s Escape says it is a modern dilemma, asking, should we disregard governmental travel advice on possible threats to our life and get on the plane, or play safe and abide by the warnings?

Warnings are issued by individual governments, who prefer the word “advisories” and they can place them on whichever country they want at any time they choose.

When asked for evidence of the intelligence that has prompted a warning, more often than not it is “classified”.

Governments are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

They get flak at home for not warning of potential threats and they get flak overseas because travel warnings undoubtedly suffocate tourism in many developing nations that rely on it.

Bali’s tourism is still down, despite advertising campaigns, plenty of goodwill and backpackers and high-end tourists coming back, with many hotel managers, villa operators and Indonesian tourism officials blame the travel warnings that are still in place more than 18 months after the Jimbaran Bay bombing.

The dramatic and wonderful Sultanate of Oman is also suffering. The country’s most glamorous hotel, the Chedi Muscat says travel warnings are responsible for a noticeable dip in occupancy.

The hotel’s general manager, York Brandes, said: “While we understand the importance of travel warnings, it has to be said that these can be very damaging to the tourist industry, especially when they have been placed on the Internet years before, never updated or removed”.

“Travel warnings appear to be written by the nearest embassy and, in the case of Oman, one cannot help but wonder if anyone from the nearest Australian embassy (there isn’t one in Oman) has ever visited this peaceful and beautiful country at all.”

Travellers are finding the decision much harder to make because there is no cohesive, global consistency when it comes to travel warnings covering life-threatening issues such as terrorism.

Nor is there any non-government regulation to prevent countries playing dirty politics with each other.

The World Tourism Organisation accepts travel advice is needed and recommends it is reviewed regularly – but goes no further.

The Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs And Trade (DFAT) places all its travel advisories on a website, www.smartraveller.gov.au.

They are categorised into two main lists: “We advise against all travel to these countries” and: “Destinations for which we advise you to reconsider your need to travel”.

There are also five levels of advice, from the lowest (“Be alert to own security”) to the highest (“Do not travel”).

DFAT says it is not playing politics but some travellers may find that hard to swallow when the list of countries “for which we advise to reconsider your need to travel” includes Lebanon and Syria yet not neighbouring, dangerous and terrorist-targeted Israel.

The entry for the USA makes for interesting reading too, warning that “the United States Department of Homeland Security’s advisory system threat level remains at code orange for the airline sector, indicating a ‘high’ risk of terrorist attack.

It is at code yellow or ‘elevated’ for all other sectors, indicating a ‘significant’ risk of terrorist attack”.

Yet DFAT advises merely “Be alert to own security”, the lowest of the five advice categories.

DFAT told Escape: “We simply want to help Australians make informed and safe travel choices.”, adding, “We strive to reflect accurately the real level of risk for travellers”.

“It is worth recalling that many Australians have been victims of terrorist attacks.” ”We have on many occasions had to evacuate Australians from situations of civil strife and war, or natural disaster.”

“We do not want to dissuade Australians from travelling, but we want to help them make informed decisions.”

DFAT also said that “when credible new information is available indicating that a threat has passed it is removed from the travel advice”.

While Australia seems to be issuing more travel advisories, Britain has moved in the other direction, with the Foreign and Commonwealth office (FCO) saying it now only advises against travel if the threat in that country is “extreme and dangerous”.

In April, Australian travellers were informed of the threat of bombs in Thailand but Britons were not.

The global inconsistencies over travel warnings means that travellers are left dazed and confused.

One potential solution is causing a stir in America, with after the April college shooting, which left 33 people dead – less than 20km from the US capital, Washington DC – the respected newspaper columnist Andres Oppenheimer suggested maybe the US should “scrap its travel warnings about countries that it deems too dangerous for Americans to visit” because “some of the capitals on the US ‘off-limits’ list have not seen incidents of violence of this magnitude in recent years”.

He said maybe the answer is to “include the United States among the countries that are too dangerous to visit,” – perhaps even for Americans!

Report by The Mole