The War in the Balkans Is Rerouting European Travel

Amid the strife in Kosovo and as thousands of U.S. troops begin to cross the Atlantic, millions of American tourists are facing a deployment decision of their own: Stick with their summer European vacation plans? Cancel them? Reroute them?

Billions of tourist dollars hang in the balance. With the American economy booming, the dollar gaining against European currencies, major airlines offering deep discounts on transatlantic flights and a full slate of premillennial events in the works throughout the Continent, sellers of travel were expecting this summer to cap an immensely profitable decade with another record performance.

Europe is still expected to get a record number of U.S. tourists in ‘99, but so far rising tensions in the Balkans have reduced bookings for Greece, Turkey and Russia, along with the former Yugoslavian territory of Croatia, tourism officials say. Reservations to parts of Italy, which lies across the Adriatic from Yugoslavia, and Austria, which is due north, are down slightly as well.

Also severely affected is the cruise industry, which in recent weeks has been turning its passenger ships away from the Adriatic ports of Venice and Dubrovnik, Croatia. Two weeks ago, Carnival Corp., the world’s biggest cruise company, warned that its earnings for 1999 would probably take a hit because of a drop in Mediterranean bookings.

Kevin Elden, a New York actor who is originally from Southern California, said the Balkan crisis prompted him and his fiancee, Nicole Benedicto, to cancel their June honeymoon cruise to the Greek Isles. Although the cancellation cost the pair a nonrefundable $300 deposit, Elden said the peace of mind was worth the money.

The conflict “was weighing on our minds more than we really wanted,” Elden said. “I didn’t think it was going to be too much of a problem, but since we were going on our honeymoon, why even take a chance?” The pair opted for two weeks in Spain.

When it comes to non-Mediterranean Europe, Kosovo’s effect is harder to detect. In fact, several Southern California travel agents and a few tour operators say their bookings are running ahead of ’98.

The State Department has not issued stay-away warnings on any European nations outside of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia-Montenegro, but it warned Americans in an advisory in April to take particular care in Greece, which has seen anti-American demonstrations and a recent hotel bombing in Athens that killed one person and injured another. (Neither was a U.S. citizen.) U.S. officials also noted anti-tourist threats made March 15 by Kurdish militants in Turkey and urged visitors there to avoid crowds.

(On Sunday the State Department issued an advisory strongly urging U.S. citizens to defer travel to China until anti-American demonstrations there subside. The protests are in reaction to NATO’s erroneous bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.)

All this uncertainty comes at the peak of the tourism industry’s selling season, when scores of tour operators and thousands of travel agents are signing up travelers for summer trips. Gary Murphy, vice president at Van Nuys-based Brendan Tours, estimates that his company, like many tour operators, makes 80% of its sales from January through April.

Travel industry insiders say the fallout of the crisis is manageable so far--minor compared with the impact of the Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking in 1985 and the Gulf War in 1991. U.S. travel to Europe fell about 19% in 1986 and 16% in 1991. The World Tourism Organization estimates that American tourists spent $51.2 billion abroad in 1997, the last year for which figures are available.

But with no clear idea of how long the confrontation in Kosovo could last, few are making big bets.

“It’s going to cast a shadow over the European summer, that’s for sure,” said David Herbert, president of the U.S. Tour Operators Assn. “When American troops and lives are out there somewhere, there’s a concern. It sets a tone.”

At Globus & Cosmos Tours, a Littleton, Colo., operator that has 15,000 customers in Europe on a typical summer day, Chief Operating Officer Phillip Gordon reported that April bookings for the Continent were down more than 10%.

“There’s a bit of wait-and-see going on,” Gordon said. The biggest slowdowns, he added, are in Greece and Turkey, “and Italy would probably follow after those two, but nothing like Greece and Turkey.” Meanwhile, he said, North America, Asia and the South Pacific have picked up notably. But U.S. travel is up, Gordon said.

At luxury tour operator Abercrombie & Kent, an Illinois company that sent about 80,000 travelers to Europe last year, “we have definitely been affected,” said spokeswoman Christa Brantsch. She declined to give figures but said the deepest dips were in Eastern Europe and Russia--but that bookings for France are soaring.

Travel agents in Southern California reported brisk bookings in April and very few customers with second thoughts.

“Our Europe business has never been better,” said Norma Mulligan, travel agent at Old Newport Travel in Newport Beach. “I haven’t had one call from anyone going to France, Italy or Greece saying, ‘Should we be concerned about travel?’ We haven’t had any cancellations on anything.”

Ada Brown, owner of Seaside Travel in Long Beach, has found much the same thing and noted that fares from LAX to Europe are as much as $400 less than they were this time last year.

American travel to Europe has doubled since 1984. Since 1991, when the Gulf War caused the tourist industry to lose millions of dollars, the Commerce Department’s tally of American visitors to Europe has jumped from 6.2 million to 10.9 million, including 5.7 million from last May through September.

But as the Balkan troubles linger, tourists and the industry are facing a strangely mixed marketplace.

“Traffic to Europe as a whole remains strong,” Joseph E. Buhler, chairman of the European Travel Commission, said in a recent interview. In an informal April 23 survey of 10 airlines that carry most of the passengers between the U.S. and Europe, the commission said it found no significant decrease in tour bookings from the U.S. The commission, which didn’t track traffic to specific places, noted that just one in six U.S. tourists in Europe join escorted tours. The commission is still predicting that about 6 million Americans will visit Europe this summer--an increase of roughly 5% over last year.

Dain Glad, a retired engineer from South Pasadena, said he and his wife, Liz, plan to visit Greece this fall despite the conflict to the north.

“Greece is not Kosovo, Albania or Yugoslavia,” Glad said. “We will proceed with caution, but unless we’re told it’s absolutely unsafe, we’ll probably go.”

Times correspondent Stephen Gregory and staff writer Jane Engle contributed to this report.

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Visiting Europe

Travel to Europe has revived since the Gulf War, which sent travel sales south by 16% in 1991. Number of U.S. residents traveling to Europe from 1984 to 1998, in millions:

1998: 11 million U.S. travelers to Europe

Sources: European Travel Commission, Commerce Department, tourism industries