Ebola Update: Tour Operators, Airlines Step Up Response
Almasalla, ATP News- With the Ebola still topping the headlines this week due to a political tussle over state and federal quarantine measures, travel suppliers in the tour and airline sector are beginning to step up their response.
Tour Operators Modify Cancellation Policies
As media attention on the outbreak continues, tour operators are beginning to modify their cancellation policies.
Africa travel company Overseas Adventure Travel announced on Tuesday that travelers booked on any of the company’s itineraries to Southern and East Africa would be able to cancel their reservation up to the day of their departure without penalty.
"While we have received very few cancellations to date, we want to be sensitive to and respectful of our travelers who do have concerns," said Harriet R. Lewis, co-chair of OAT. "O.A.T.’s Boston leaders have been working closely with our offices in Cape Town, South Africa, Arusha, Tanzania and Marrakesh, Morocco, and communicating regularly with travel partners and guides in Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Kenya. Based on their information, O.A.T. will continue to operate all scheduled departures."
OAT offers itineraries in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Tanzania, South Africa, and Morocco. In addition to the new cancellation policy, travelers will have the option to change their reservation to any another O.A.T. itinerary without penalty.
Austin Adventures has likewise modified its cancellation policy. Should health officials report a confirmed case of Ebola within 500 miles of an Austin Adventures vacation host city, the company will waive its trip cancellation fee. Booked guests can either cancel their trip completely, at least seven days prior to their scheduled departure, without having to pay a cancellation fee, or they could postpone their trip and travel at a later date for the same price.
“While we realize that the odds of Ebola affecting our itineraries are minuscule at best, we hope to assuage any fears that a guest may have by updating our cancellation policy to address this sensitive subject,” said Dan Austin, president and founder of Austin Adventures.
The new policy applies to all of Austin Adventures’ itineraries, not just those in Africa. The company’s host cities in Africa include Arusha, Brazzaville, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Livingstone, Maun, Nairobi and Windhoek.
Neither company offers itineraries in West Africa, which is home to the three nations hardest-hit by the outbreak. Austin Adventures’ closest host city is Brazzaville, the capital city of the Republic of the Congo. At more than 3,000 miles away, it is roughly as far away as the distance between Maine and California.
Airlines Privately Work Against Travel Ban
Airlines, meanwhile, have been privately applying pressure to the U.S. government against the implementation of a ban on travel from hard-hit Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, Reuters reports. Airlines for America (A4A) has said that it supports the Obama administration’s position that a ban would hinder efforts to fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Airlines have also indicated that their booking agents and software would not be able to identify travelers under any potential ban, and that such a ban might harm travel on a wider scale by alarming the public.
"Public hysteria is something we certainly don’t want to see," an executive at a major U.S. carrier told Reuters.
A potential Ebola travel ban had been in the public eye since early October, when a survey by NBC showed support among 58 percent of Americans for such a ban.
The Obama administration had been against a full-fledged travel ban, arguing that one could make the outbreak worst by causing civil unrest in the countries hardest-hit by the virus, hindering efforts to stop the outbreak at its source.
"You isolate them, you can cause unrest in the country," Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, told "Fox News Sunday" at the time. ”It’s conceivable that governments could fall if you just isolate them completely."
Mandatory Quarantines Spark Controversy
The moves in the travel sector come as mandatory quarantine procedures imposed by state governments have sparked controversy in the consumer media.
In Maine, nurse Kaci Hickox, who treated Ebola patients in West Africa for Doctors Without Borders, is challenging a mandatory quarantine policy. Hickox has indicated that she would cease cooperating if the state had not lifted the mandatory quarantine by Thursday. The state is seeking a court order to allow state troopers to detain the nurse.
Source: travelagentcentral
