One of the earliest examples of holiday disasters was probably the RMS Titanic. Billed as unsinkable, I doubt the idea of it sinking crossed a single passenger’s mind. But it did.
Wind the clock forward exactly 100 years to 2012: I doubt passengers on the 114,000 tonne Costa Concordia, with every modern-day safety feature, ever expected it would run into serious trouble in the calm warm waters of the Mediterranean. But it did. And 32 passengers lost their lives.
Air travel does of course worry some people yet, statistically, it is far safer than driving a car (the most dangerous activity most of us undertake on a regular basis).
Research in the US has revealed that over the course of an average lifetime, you have a less than 1 in 158 chance of being killed in a car crash.
Someone who flies EVERY WEEK for 30 years has less than a 1 in 787 chance of going down in a plane. So there’s around five times more risk of a fatal accident getting into your car.
I suppose you could argue that neither of those stats are particularly reassuring when we expectantly purchase lottery tickets with a one in 14 million chance of winning the jackpot!
I have worked with a number of leading adventure holiday companies over the years and customer safety is something many of them have to think long and hard about when setting up a new itinerary.
Part of the problem is that many people are excited at the prospect of visiting a country that might be a bit ‘risky’ (and customer feedback shows that they ‘like it’ when things go wrong).
The basic rule of thumb for tour operators is to follow the Foreign & Commonwealth Office travel advice. But that tends to err on the side of caution, advising against travel to some countries that others might perceive as perfectly safe.
One of the companies I work for sells group tours to Iran which is on the FCO ‘don’t go’ list. Yet they believe the advice is based largely on the fact that there is no diplomatic representation of Britain in Iran, a fact which is due to change soon with the government announcement last year that it would be reopening the Embassy in Tehran. My client has operated there for years and considers it to be perfectly safe.
At the end of the day we are all adults and should take responsibility for our own decisions (in my humble opinion).
Thanks to the Internet, research has never been easier and we can all swot up on a destination before deciding on where to travel to.
Life is short and our wonderful world is now a small, accessible place. I would say go and see as much of it as you can before, from whatever cause, you buy the farm …