Comment: All we can do is carry on

Brussels on Tuesday suffered the kind of horror that hit Istanbul on Saturday, that Paris saw in November and that London experienced in 2005.

An awful air of inevitability has descended around the lengthening sequence of terror attacks and security lockdowns, with the latest atrocities following hard on the arrest of a prime suspect for the Paris attacks.

Leave aside the horror of Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, which extends beyond belief, there is now no foreseeable end to this cycle of atrocity or to the era of heightened security which began in August 2006 with the discovery of the liquids bomb plot at Heathrow. We all just have to live with it.

For the industry, there is more than enough evidence to suggest travel demand won’t suffer in anything more than the shortest possible term, despite initial falls in listed travel stocks on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for some destinations. Tunisia is off the tourist map. Egypt may yet join it.   Turkey appears in such deep trouble that even a cut-price lates period may not salvage the market for a destination which could otherwise expect to see 20 million visitors a year.

Unhappily, it is also clear that travellers are now in the line of fire and not just in some destinations.

Attacks like those in Paris may target victims at random but still impact on travel because of their location and prominence.

Others target travellers specifically, like the bomb at Brussels Airport and the threat issued last month to tourists and airlines in Turkey.

The only response is to carry on, bear with the security measures and recognise that many, many millions of people will travel safely this Easter weekend and every weekend following.