As many as five million jobs could be lost in the world tourist and travel sector this year as the Sars virus and the economic downturn combine to reduce international travel, the International Labour Organisation has warned.
These losses, on top of the 6.5 million jobs lost between the 11 September attacks on the USA and the build-up to this year's war on Iraq, would mean the disappearance of one in every seven jobs in the sector since 2001.
Worse, the ILO warns that there is "no end in sight" to the losses as "prospects for a recovery are grim". Workers most at risk of losing their income are said to be part-time staff, women, migrants and younger people.
Areas directly affected by the Sars virus - Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam - could lose as many as 30% of their jobs in travel and tourism, while as many as 15% of jobs could go in the neighbouring areas of Australia, Fiji, Indonesia, Kiribati, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Thailand.
Job losses around the rest of the world are expected to average 5%.
One in nine tourism jobs are endangered in Thailand, where hotel cancellations are running at 5-10% and 50% of foreign bookings have been lost. Malaysia, too, has been hard hit, with hotel occupancy plummeting by as much as 30% and airline bookings by 40%.
* The number of overseas visitors to Britain fell by 3% in March to 1.7 million, and spend by foreign tourists dropped by 1% to £760,000, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics.
Comparison with March 2000 shows even more dramatic declines in visits and expenditure of 7% and 12% respectively.
Most calamitous was the fall in visitor numbers from North America. Their numbers fell by 19% year on year to 290,000 and by 30% compared with March 2000.
The UK's biggest tourism market, western Europe, sent more than 1.16 million visitors, 3% more than in March 2002. Trips from the rest of the world fell by 3% to 250,000.
By Angela Frewin