“And. . where were you?” has become one of the most popular questions after what we will all remember, in years to come, as the “9/11” event. Needless to say, what most of us keep asking ourselves is what happens next?

    For many of us, as Kurt Kutay from Wildland Adventures said, “travel may very well be the best antidote for the ills of our time, for our personal well-being and to spite the intentions of those who hope we will live in fear. Active, adventure vacations in nature and among traditional native cultures are the most meaningful and precious days of our lives.” With this in mind, we should analyze what is happening right now to the hospitality industry as a whole, and how we should approach it to “make things better.”

    According to the World Tourism Organization, international tourist arrivals increased by almost 50 million from 1999 to the year 2000, reaching 699 million worldwide. This represented an increase in international tourism of 7.4 percent. Regular international air traffic increased by 10 percent over 1999.

    The first eight months of 2001 were marked by several economical features:

1. The anticipated annual growth in the United States’ Gross National Product dropped from 3.2 to an actual 2.7 percent.

2. The world’s stock markets showed a decrease in share prices.

3. There was a considerable cut in interest rates in the United States.

    Even so, the situation of the world economy seemed to be approaching a reactivation because of a downward trend in oil prices, the policies of central banks and a potential growth in the new technologies industry, particularly in the United States and Europe.

    What were immediate consequences for the world’s tourism after the terrorist attack?

    According to experts, these attacks have had more impact than almost any other crisis in the past. Besides the above mentioned facts regarding the troubles that the world’s economy was and is undergoing, a crisis of uncertain implications directly affects the U.S., Costa Rica’s largest source of foreign visitors. Another possible outcome of this situation could be an unwillingness to use air transport. It is hard, however, to predict how long these possible effects will last. The situation is unprecedented and impossible to predict with any reasonable assurance.

    After talking to several tourism professionals in the Osa, a common development has been seen in the past low season; the occupancy for September, October and November has been lower than last year’s by over 50 percent, in some cases even up to 60 % less. The “walk-in” business was also very low all over the peninsula. Even so, this southern side of the country seems to have endured a smaller impact than the rest of the country, especially the North Pacific, where tourism was for all practical purposes nil.

    According to Patricia Forero, from Agencia de Viajes Horizontes, the trend in reservations will also be affected. There seems to be a tendency for tourists to book their vacation with very short notice, pre-payment of reservations is not very well received by potential customers, and awareness of cancellation policies has increased.

    The high season seems to have “picked up.” Reservations have increased, according to most hotels in the area, by about a 20% in the past two weeks. While occupancy percentages have not reached the incredible numbers of the year 2000, slowly the charts have been filling up. At the moment, most hotels are about 15% lower in occupancy than last year, but if we listen to what Horizontes’ expert is saying, we might reach the numbers forecast when the time for the reservation approaches.

Most of the industry has responded to the 9/11 crisis by developing strategies that will

strengthen tourism companies and will hopefully restore public confidence.

1. Mexico has started an aggressive campaign to bring tourists into the country. The promotion budget has been increased by 50 percent.

2. Argentina is cutting taxes on tourism businesses and re-focusing its promotional campaign.

3. The Caribbean Tourism Organization has created a joint marketing, promotion and public relations campaign set to begin soon.

    Most experts are recommending tourism products to go “on-line.” A great effort is being put into appearing on the web, facilitating access to those travelers that will come to Costa Rica.

    Perhaps the single largest factor influencing the traveling western public, particularly Americans, is the sheer uncertainty of so many new variables. While aerial hijacking has been around since sixties, suicide hijackers are a new global phenomenon and as security apparatuses the world over have taken pains to explain, very difficult to guard against. Everyone has always known that this Osama character was out there with a grudge against Americans, but the reality of his declared war on American citizens is growing increasingly manifest as the refuse of his camps in Afghanistan and informants reveal troubling details of the extensiveness of his efforts and desire to kill Americans. We all know that agents of terrorism remain distributed throughout the world. We would like to hope that the command structure has been disturbed by the military actions in Afghanistan and that the flow of funds has been curtailed from sleeper cells. However, no one knows to what extent that undiscovered cells or individuals will attack, with or without al Qaeda orders. As if a simple fear of flying were not enough, the anthrax mystery has taken a shaken populace and reminded it of human mortality and the implications of an active enmity by a hydra’s head of violent radicals, whether they’re Muslim fundamentalists from Yemen, Somalia, Kandahar, or separatist neo-nazis from Idaho or Dusseldorf. As if airplanes and anthrax were not enough, now the United States has declared a war in which it reserves the prerogative to strike any nation in the world which it concludes supports or provides succor to terrorists, a term that no governmental body on the planet has to date been able to define. As bodies mount in Palestine, it is clear that there is going to continue to exist the types of political, economic, social, and ethnic inequities that gave rise to terrorism in the first place. In this war against a concept, the American leadership warns its people to expect years and years of conflict before some eventual unforeseeable resolution. And while this war is being waged, the flying western public will be hard-pressed not to factor this into their vacation plans. We can only hope that collateral casualties of America’s War on Terrorism does not include the hospitality industry.