European tourists cancelling Tunisia vacations after massacre

Tourists take part in a gathering in solidarity with Tunisia's tourism industry on the island of Djerba, following a deadly gun attack at a holiday resort near Sousse. (AFP PHOTO/FETHI NASRI)

PARIS: Thousands of European tourists are cancelling planned vacations to Tunisia in the wake of last week's massacre at a beach resort by a gunman whose attack was claimed by the Islamic State group.

Tour operators said on Monday (Jun 29) that many clients were scrapping plans entirely or asking to go to other, safer destinations. Some of the travel companies had taken the initiative themselves to suspend travel to Tunisia.

The trend began on Saturday, the day after 38 people - most of them British tourists - were killed at the Riu Imperial Marhaba hotel resort by the Tunisian gunman, who was then shot dead by police.

The cancellations have grown since as perception spread of Tunisia as a risky holiday spot targeted by anti-Western jihadists. In March, the North African country suffered an attack at a museum in its capital that killed 21 tourists.

TUI, the German group that is the biggest leisure and tourism company in the world, said Monday it had received 500 requests for "changed reservations" since the weekend. It declined to say how many Tunisia reservations it had been handling.

Germany's number two tourism company Der Touristik said the latest attack had caused around half of its customers who were meant to have left on the weekend to stay at home.

A spokeswoman said the company had taken "several thousand reservations" for Tunisia for the peak vacation months of July and August, and that as of Monday there were 400 cancellations or changes for other destinations.

Demand had slowly bounced back after the March attack in Tunis, "but has now again been reduced to nothing," she said.

In France, the head of the SNAV national association of travel agents, Jean-Pierre Mas, told AFP that, of around 10,000 vacation packages reserved for Tunisia for July, 80 per cent were cancelled or modified.

Rene-Marc Chikli, of the French tour operator association SETO, said between a quarter and half of the 50,000 reservations had been changed. He said "the worst effect" was on the last-minute bookings that would normally have filled spare capacity. "All the last-minute market is sunk," he said.

In Belgium, "more than 15,000" customers were affected by the decision by the travel company Neckermann - a subsidiary of Thomas Cook - to cancel Tunisia packages until the end of August in line with a foreign ministry warning.

Jetair, another Belgian company, has also suspended Tunisia trips until the end of July, a spokeswoman said.

In Britain, which was reeling from the number of citizens killed last week, no figures were available on Monday on the number of cancelled vacation trips. A spokesman for the Association of British Travel Agents said however there had been a "clear impact" on Britons who had been planning vacations in Tunisia.