Beware the official travel warning

By COLE MORETON

The global village is shrinking again. We got used to thinking of the planet as one big peaceful playground, made reachable and affordable by better and cheaper transport.

Now the bombs in Casablanca provide yet another reason - as if it were needed - for fearful former travellers to stay at home.

The backyard is probably still a safe place for a game of cricket (as long as you keep your eyes open) but don't stray outside or you might get blown to pieces. That's how it feels, anyway, as the number of dangerous places seems to escalate by the day.

Several years ago David and Trish Jarvis, of St Albans, north of London, flew to Israel for a holiday. Their son Mark joined a volunteer team building wells in Tanzania, while their daughter Jemima backpacked in the southern Philippines.

This year all of those countries is the subject of a warning by the Foreign Office, which says travellers should avoid them because of the high threat of terrorism. The Jarvises are going to the Cotswolds.

Says Frances Tuke, of the Association of British Travel Agents: "There has been a lot of talk about the world turning into one big global village in recent years. That just won't be the case any more if this goes on."

It seems there is no such thing as a completely safe place.

"Just before the [Iraq] war the Foreign Office put out a general alert for terrorism and that still stands. Staying [at home] is not necessarily safe, although we do have pretty good security forces in place."

Big travel agencies can adjust relatively easily to threats, she says, by switching destinations.

"It is the smaller operators, who specialise in particular countries, that are going to be hit. We have seen that in China with Sars and we expect it will be the case with Kenya and Morocco."

Members have no choice but to follow government advice. "We do not have the same access to independent information, so we have to accept the warnings. The safety of the traveller is paramount."

The Foreign Office says it doesn't warn against travel to all countries in which there is a terrorism risk.

"If we were to do so it could cover a large proportion of the world, serving only to cause panic and disrupt normal life. That is precisely what terrorists want."

Foreign Office advice contains a chilling list of attacks in the past 18 months that received less attention than those in Kenya and Bali.

They include suicide attacks on a synagogue in Tunisia and a bus in Karachi; explosions on the Costa Blanca, the Costa del Sol and in Spanish cities; shootings in Yemen and Saudi Arabia; an attack on a nightclub in Colombia; and bombs at airports in the Philippines and Indonesia.

"These attacks show that terrorists are prepared to attack the least well-protected targets such as innocent holidaymakers," says the Foreign Office, "as long as they can be seen to hit at Western interests."

In some "dangerous" places, though, there is a threat only if you become involved in internal disputes.

Lewis Doney, 23, spent six months as an environmental and educational volunteer in eastern Nepal.

The struggle between the Government and Maoists led the Foreign Office to warn of "an increased risk of terrorism", but Doney saw little trouble.

"The police leave you alone because they have never heard of Westerners becoming Maoists and the Maoists do not bother you because they know it would lead to a big crackdown."

Travel warnings can have dire consequences for those working in the countries concerned. Not surprisingly, they protest.

"The British authorities are being over-zealous," says Colin Church, head of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

"I accept the country has been put on high alert, but a blanket ban on flights is so damaging. Revenue to parks will be directly affected if a review of the situation is not made very soon."

Ten years ago American tour operators were reluctant to visit Britain because of the IRA bombing campaign. Hoteliers in the countryside protested that they were miles from any danger, but that didn't cut much ice on the other side of the Atlantic.

Meanwhile, tourism in the Republic of Ireland suffered because some Britons thought they might be at risk there.

Now there is a similar danger of terrorists having a far greater impact than their actions warrant, because of fear and a lack of knowledge about the places we visit.

Tourists do not seem to have been the target of Saturday's blasts in Morocco.

Maybe they are on to something: a way to beat the terrorists, if you have the nerve. The bombers depend on surprise and are reluctant to strike where security is tight - as it invariably is anywhere that has just been hit.

Flights to Bali became dirt cheap after the bombing, but there has been no trouble there since.

- INDEPENDENT