British FCO advice politically motivated?
www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, February 03, 2003 - 12:55:14 PM By: Charlie Hopkinson
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 16:33:32 -0000 From: Charlie Hopkinson charlie@dragoman.co.uk To: Editor@vheadline.com Subject: Foreign Tour Operators
Dear Editor: Dragoman is an overland tour operator that brings in-bound tourists to Venezuela throughout the year. We operate through Asia, Africa and Latin America and believe that we have fair knowledge of the areas that we visit and good grasp of the political and security situations in the most of the countries that we travel through.
The recent political problems in Venezuela have meant that our programs there have been completely disrupted.
In actual fact it was not directly because of the political and civil unrest that we have had to cancel our trips to Venezuela ... but rather because of the British Foreign & Commonwealth Advice concerning the current situation.
This advise stipulates.... "We advise against all but essential travel to Venezuela, including the island of Margarita, for the time being because of the serious political situation and shortages of food and fuel. If you do have to travel to Venezuela, you should take great care with your security arrangements. If you are already in Venezuela, you should leave the country unless you consider your presence there is essential...."
Tourism is not considered essential.
This advice means that, no matter what the reality of the situation in Venezuela, we cannot bring tourists to Venezuela. If we do, various insurance policies that we hold could be nullified and the company become directly liable for any situation affecting our groups.
- This advice appears to be in conflict with what we are being told by a variety of sources in and around Venezuela. Not only is this bad for our company, but ten times worse for Venezuela's lucrative tourist industry.
I wonder whether the local tourist industry and the Venezuelans employed within that industry, know that if it were not for the Western Governments advice (which appears to follow the US advice), most inbound tour operators would be bringing tourists back to Venezuela?
What is even more surprising is that we are being advised not to visit Venezuela when there has been no specific threat to foreign tourists ... and yet we are told we can continue visiting Zanzibar in Tanzania, despite a specific threat being issued.
I wonder whether the advice is politically motivated in any way?
I also wonder what Venezuelans feel about the advice that we foreigners are being given. Do they realize that the outside world is being told that Venezuela is one of the most dangerous places to visit in the world?
Charlie Hopkinson charlie@dragoman.co.uk