The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that some 6.6 million tourism jobs, mainly in hotels and restaurants, were lost during 2001-02 because of political turmoil around the world.

And there is little prospect of any recovery in employment in the sector before 2005, according to the ILO's report, The impact of the 2001-2001 crisis on the hotel and tourism industry, which was published last week.

Dirk Belau, industrial specialist at the ILO, said there would be growth in employment only after there had been a substantial improvement in visitor numbers.

"It will take two years of growth of 4% or more in visitor figures to sustain employment rises," he said. "We were saying that 2001 and 2002 were the crisis years and everyone believed that at the end of 2002 we would see some recovery. But it is now clear that 2003 and 2004 won't see a return to the tourism levels of 2000."

Many businesses, he added, had learnt to manage with fewer staff and would be reluctant to take on more people, even when business picked up.

Fears of more attacks on tourists - such as those that occurred in Bali and Kenya in 2002 - and political developments in the Middle East and elsewhere have changed consumer travel preferences, the report says.

But even with the loss of jobs and political unrest, there has been some tourism growth.

The number of international tourists has topped the 700 million mark for the first time, according to the World Tourism Organisation (WTO).

The WTO's figures reveal a 3.1% increase in world tourist arrivals in 2002. Almost 715 million international tourist arrivals were recorded last year, 22 million more than there were in 2001.

Europe was the most popular area, with 411 million arrivals; Asia and the Pacific came next with 131 million arrivals; then the Americas with 120 million, Africa with 28 million and the Middle East with 24 million.

Where does the UK stand?

Tour operators in the UK are reporting a drop in the number of visitor arrivals.

The British Incoming Tour Operators Association reported a 1.77% drop [in 2002] compared with the previous year. And the number of jobs available plummeted.

Last year there were 53,595 jobs advertised in the hospitality market in the UK, representing a 27% drop on the number advertised in 2001, according to data from Salary Survey Publications December 2002.

However, Gary Katzler, director of recruitment consultancy Berkeley Scott, believes that short-term strategies by the main hospitality players are to blame.

"Unfortunately a lot of companies take a short-term view, because they are under pressure from the stock market to perform," he said.

"If sales have been flat and there is no growth, all they can do is cut costs. This means, in some cases, redundancies or not replacing people that have left. I believe that whether there is a war with Iraq or not, as soon as something definite happens there will be movement in the jobs market."