Tourism chiefs urge visitors not to cancel trips

Today’s terrorism attacks in London could dissuade overseas residents from visiting Britain, tourist chiefs said today.

A spokesman for the Association of British Travel Agents said: “UK citizens tend to shrug off terrorism but people from some other countries are much more easily put off travelling by incidents such as this.

“Many visitors to London are from other parts of the UK and I don’t think they will be deterred from coming to the capital.

“But we fear that today’s events could have some effect when it comes to tourists from overseas.”

A spokeswoman for the VisitBritain organisation said: “We are updating our overseas offices with the latest news so they can inform people wanting to come to the UK.

“We feel there is no reason for people arriving at the moment to cancel trips, but that visitors should be prepared for some disruption. Every incident is different and we hope this is an isolated one.”

Londoners in particular and Britons in general have learned to live with the threat of terrorism, with older members of the population able to recall IRA attacks dating back to the 1970s.

In recent years terrorism, the Gulf War and the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak all hit the numbers of overseas visitors coming to the UK.

American numbers, in particular, were well down in the early years of this decade, although they have picked up recently.

Americans tend to be among the most nervous of overseas travellers and tourist chiefs will be anxiously hoping that today’s events will not lead to another US downturn.