Swine Flu Devastates India’s Tourism Industry

With swine flu still running rampant worldwide, the tourism industry in India's northwestern city of Jaipur, has taken a huge plunge. The industry has been registering huge losses due to swine flu, with around ten to fifteen percent of tourists either canceling or postponing their visit to the city.

Experts in the tourism industry, say their business has been severely affected by the extensive media coverage of swine flu.

[Piyush Khandelwal, Tour Operator]:
"Swine flu has affected the whole country. Bookings have been cancelled and there are domestic market problems too. The only thing we want is for the media to not hype the situation and not concentrate more on swine flu, so that our industry can grow. Due to the media coverage from Pune, the tourists cancelled their bookings. There has been a similar effect on Rajasthan too. Presently there is no movement in Rajasthan."

Due to frequent terror attacks, tourism in Jaipur has been suffering severely for the last two years, and now swine flu has caused a further slowdown in the travel trade.

[Rao Khushnoot, Tour Operator]:
"Domestic business has surely been affected by swine flu. People coming from different parts of the country have postponed their trips because of swine flu. Otherwise the regular business trips are still on. There are no cancellations from the foreign clients, so they are regular with us."

Mr. Khushnoot added that about 10-15 percent of tourists booked for Jaipur city, have cancelled.

The H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu, emerged in April in the United States and Mexico, and has spread internationally.

The World Health Organization has called the H1N1 swine flu, unstoppable, because many countries are not keeping a precise count of virus cases.