Americans Holding Fast to Foreign Travel Plans : Middle East: So far, the Gulf Crisis has had surprisingly little effect on U.S. citizens traveling abroad. Airlines and cruise companies report few cancellations.

Five years ago, when Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and killed one American tourist, reaction was swift.

Within hours of the incident--which occurred during the ship’s 10-day cruise of the eastern Mediterranean--cruise reservations were canceled in record numbers.

Cruise industry sources recall that reaction to the hijacking forced most lines operating in the area to reposition their ships to either the western Mediterranean or Alaska.

Julie Benson, public relations director for Princess Cruises, adds that a combination of events that year, including several terrorist bombings at international airports, also prompted travelers to stay away from Europe and the Mediterranean.

Airlines reported huge drops in bookings as travel to the Middle East, as well as to Greece, Italy and France--countries where airport terrorism had been a problem--plummeted.

So what about American travelers’ reactions to the surprise Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq?

Have bookings to the Middle East dropped? Have hotel rooms throughout Europe become vacant? Are airplanes flying only half full during peak summer months? In short, has history repeated itself?

Surprisingly, at the time this section went to press mid-week, the answer was no.

Some segments of the travel industry, of course, have had to make adjustments to the evolving situation in the Middle East.

For example, within hours of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia closed a major air route across that country, one that traditionally links Europe to the Far East. That route is still closed to commercial air travel.

The U.S. State Department, which issues advisories for travel to the Middle East, on Aug. 7 advised against travel to Iraq. On Aug. 16, the advisories were extended to include the eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia, plus other countries such as Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, cautioning that these destinations be only “essential travel.”

(The State Department already had travel advisories out for the West Bank and Gaza in Israel, and Jordan, for unrelated problems.)

U.S. airlines report that their passenger loads to the region are still very high, with no cancellations of scheduled flights.

“We’re still flying to Karachi (Pakistan), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Istanbul and Tel Aviv,” Pan Am spokesman Jeff Kriendler said. “Traffic is very strong in each direction. We’ve only changed a couple of our flight patterns.”

On one Pan Am flight, between Frankfurt and Karachi, the normal routing took the plane 22 miles from Iraq. The flight was rerouted over Egypt.

American Airlines spokesperson Mary O’Neill agrees that “there’s been no drop-off (in international air travel) like there was in 1985. Our traffic remains very strong,” she says, “and our flights to Frankfurt, Paris and London are flying near capacity.”

One possible reason O’Neill cites for the lack of cancellations by passengers is “we think that they are not looking at the Iraqi situation as a single terrorist act. Many people are continuing to fly because there hasn’t been any loss of tourist lives.” Another reason, she adds, “is that so many American vacationers purchased their tickets in advance, many of which are nonrefundable, so they’re grinning and bearing it.”

Pan Am and other U.S. airlines, however, are taking no chances when it comes to security for their European and Middle Eastern operations. Each U.S. airline has dramatically beefed up its airport security and screening procedures since Aug. 2.

“No one has hit the panic button yet,” KLM spokesperson Odette Fodor said. KLM, like many airlines flying in the Middle East, has had to do some minor rerouting. For example, KLM’s flight to Singapore through Kuwait has been rerouted through Dubai. Lufthansa’s Middle Eastern flights are being rerouted through Abu Dhabi instead of Baghdad and Kuwait.

Some airlines are being flexible for passengers who want to cancel. For example, KLM passengers holding nonrefundable or penalty-with-refund APEX tickets to the Middle East, can cancel without paying a penalty fee until the conflict is resolved. British Airways and Pan Am have announced similar cancellation allowances.

The cruise business also claims it is not being affected by the Iraqi crisis.

There are currently 35 ships cruising in the Mediterranean, and none had changed itineraries by mid-week.

Holland America, Royal, Royal Viking and Costa cruise lines say they have received only a few cancellations. And Sun Line’s cruise ship, the Stella Solaris, is still scheduling its Sept. 3 itinerary, which includes such destinations as the Greek Islands, Turkey, Egypt and Israel.

“We’ve seen a few cancellations, but we are still getting bookings,” said Meg Hickey, a Sun Line spokesperson.

“We’ve had virtually no cancellations this year. People are still going, they’re perceiving they’re safe,” said Benson of Princess Cruises, which has one ship remaining in the Mediterranean for this cruise season.

Cunard has attempted to distance itself from the action with a public statement. “Cunard has no ships within 500 miles of the Persian Gulf,” the statement said.

Tour operators in the Near and Middle East--specifically operating in Egypt and Turkey--are reporting no significant cancellations by Americans.

“There is some postponing of trips by people who have made deposits on trips, and that’s understandable,” said Robert Cazian, president of R & H Voyages, a Glendale tour operator that specializes in travel to the Middle East. “But we have had no cancellations by groups or by individuals who have paid in full for their tours.

“People know their geography these days, and they know that there’s no problem in Egypt. No one is touching Greece. Israel is as safe as ever. And the same goes for Turkey. Right now, people are still concerned about individual acts of terrorism--the possibility of being hijacked--not war.”

Many in the travel industry believe that the relatively minor negative reaction by U.S. travelers has more to do with the timing of events in Iraq than with the severity of the events themselves.

“We were so far into the summer season when this happened,” said Dan Daniele, partner and senior analyst with Laventhol and Horwath, a major accounting and business consulting firm specializing in the hotel business, “that it’s not really having a major negative impact. People already had made their plans, and they’re keeping them.

“If this had happened in June, it would have been a much different story,” Daniele added. “In May, it would have been even worse.”

In fact, the events in the Middle East may be having more impact on U.S. domestic travel than overseas tourism.

As gas prices continue to rise, some segments of the travel industry are beginning to see increased bookings, and domestic air travel is currently a buyer’s market.

Initially, airlines greeted the rise in oil prices by adding fuel surcharges to existing fares.

However, almost immediately (because summer domestic travel was uncharacteristically slow even before the events in the Middle East), both TWA and Eastern Airlines announced that they were cutting some of their air fares by as much as 30%. Normally, fares don’t drop in the United States until after Sept. 15.

“We went through the same cycle in ‘73-’74,” Daniele said. “You can have high gas prices, but it won’t cause people to stop traveling. It will just reorient their travel choices. As long as there’s no interruption in supplies, the people who benefit will be the economy sector of travel.”

“We’ve seen an increase in our booking activity,” said George Guenther, president of the National Tour Assn., the leading group-escorted tour organization in North America. “And we’ve been more conservative than our friends at the airlines and at the gas pumps. We don’t plan to raise our prices.”