“Xenophobic attacks?” The  African product development manager looked enquiringly at me as we sat in her downtown office in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />
Toronto on Friday afternoon.

I had asked her to what extent GAP Adventures, as one of the leading tour operators to the region, had been affected by cancellations as a result of the recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa.“I am not aware of it being a problem for us but let me call in our operations manager who also looks after
Africa and has just come back from a visit,” she said. Indeed Benjamin Weiher had just returned from the Indaba in
Durban. “I only found out about the unrest after I returned to
Toronto, although I learned later it was going on while I was there,” he confessed. Benjamin is not fazed by disasters. GAP's staff of 500 in 20 offices worldwide run over 1000 packages to seven continents. The Toronto headquatered company is  a  a true multinational tour operator.  “
South Africa at this point in not one of our problem areas.
Kenya,
Tibet and
China are where we have problems. "Sensationalism in the mass media often creates the wrong impression in source markets and so we go to our destination management companies in those areas to get first hand knowledge of how the problem is actually affecting tourists. If necessary we re-route travellers and put up an update on our website,” he explained. “Because of my close contacts with destinations, I am contacted when the
sales department picks up a problem and wants to know what is happening in a destination. So far there have been no cancellations for
South Africa. Nobody within GAP has even yet contacted me to ask what is going on. “So far this year our business to
South Africa is up some 20 % and it is too early to say if it will now dip.”

Cancellations by overseas tourists as a result of the xenophobic attacks, where mainly destitute South Africans have turned violently against the flood of economic refugees form other parts of Africa, have predominantly affected Asian markets. The cancellations are not across the board.

TravelHub is interested in what you are experiencing out of the various source markets. Please give us details of how you are directly experiencing the consquences  by sending an email to suel@nowmedia.co.za