(Reuters) – Airline bookings to parts of Latin America and the Caribbean have slipped globally since a US public health agency warned pregnant women against travel to areas where the Zika virus is spreading, travel data analysis company ForwardKeys said on Friday.
Bookings to regions hit by the mosquito-borne virus fell some 3.4 per cent from a year ago between Jan 15, when the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel advisory, and Feb 10, the report found.
A move by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Feb 1 to call the Zika outbreak an international emergency appeared to accelerate the slide, with bookings plunging 10 per cent between the WHO announcement and Feb 10, according to the report.
The study, which analyzed around 14 million daily travel agency transactions made via global ticket distributors, provides early evidence of Zika’s potentially broad impact on travel demand to certain Latin American countries.
Before the CDC warning, bookings were up 4.9 per cent during December and early January to the same destinations from a year ago, the report said.
Scientists are investigating a potential link between Zika infections of pregnant women and more than 4,000 suspected cases in Brazil of microcephaly, a condition marked by abnormally small head size that can result in developmental problems.
American Airlines Group Inc, which has the widest Latin American network among US peers, on Friday reiterated a late-January comment by its president that it has seen no material change to flight bookings.
Its President Scott Kirby said at the time that identifying bookings lost due to Zika would be difficult because unit revenue already was down some 40 per cent to Brazil because of the country’s economic crisis.
According to the ForwardKeys study, there were 3 per cent fewer bookings made to Brazil between Jan 15 and Feb 10 versus a year before.
Tourist hotspots with Zika outbreaks such as Martinique and the US Virgin Islands saw steeper declines at 24 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively.
