THE
Association of National Tourist Office Representatives should be doing more to
help tourist boards during the Middle Eastern crisis, one of its members has
claimed.
Moroccan
National Tourist Office director Ali El Kasmi said ANTOR should be pressurising
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to stop it issuing heightened travel
warnings without more consultation with the destinations concerned.
“The
current crisis provides a chance for ANTOR to prove its value. It seems unfair
the FCO should be highlighting destinations as potentially dangerous to visit
when Heathrow has so recently been surrounded by soldiers, tanks and police,”
he said.
El Kasmi’s comments were made after FCO advice to
Morocco was stepped up. But ANTOR said it couldn’t influence the FCO. “There’s
nothing we can do as their information is based on the highest intelligence and
we are not a political organisation,” a spokeswoman said.