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CNN SUNDAY MORNING
Interview With Amy Ziff
Aired March 16, 2003 - 09:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ARTHEL NEVILLE, CNN ANCHOR: A new form of pneumonia, the World Health Organization has issued a travel advisory and the CDC says prospective travelers should think carefully about their plans. So, if people heed the warnings and are curtail travel, what's the likely impact, especially on an industry already hit hard since 9/11.
Amy Ziff is editor-at-large of Travelocity.com.
And good morning, Amy. That's the question. The travel industry is already weak. That will happen now?
AMY ZIFF, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, TRAVELOCITY.COM: That's right. Well, we are still waiting to see whether or not the American airline companies are going to actually issue some sort policy around this. Up to now, they have not.
But you have to understand this is very, very early in the sort of declaration of what is happening. This is an alert system that has been put in place to make travelers aware. It's working. It's doing just that. The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control are out there in the public eye.
They're talking about this, what is called SARS or Severe Acute Respiratory Illness, found in Asia, specifically some areas of China, Hong Kong and Vietnam. So that's really where the focus is going to be. If you have travel there the question will be what to do. And that's really what travelers are going to be looking at.
NEVILLE: At this point, are they recommending that travelers stay away from those Asian countries?
ZIFF: Well, what they have said, is that working together, the World Health Organization and CDC has said people who are opting for elective or nonessential travel to those areas should reconsider.
And, indeed, today, Cafe Pacific (ph) has said that they are issuing precautions and what they mean is they are reminding their staff not to permit any passenger who displays signs of this illness to board their planes. But they have not curtailed any of their flights.
NEVILLE: Now, Amy would you say that trains or boats or airplanes are more suspect or vulnerable, I should say, to the virus?
ZIFF: I think at this point, they're still really trying to isolate just what the virus is, how it's transmitted. I mean, they believe that it's a flu-like kind of illness, but they aren't stating just how, you know, it's transmitted person to person. Although they suspect, since some health workers who have come in contact with patients have developed it, that you have to be in close quarters. So I can't really comment on that at the moment.
NEVILLE: Sure. Well, Amy, we just had the breaking news here in CNN that, in fact, President Bush is going to make a tough decision, tough announcement regarding Iraq in a couple of days. Now, of course, we don't know exactly what the president is going to say, but hypothetically speaking if there is going to be some sort of invasion into Iraq, what happens if you had, say, a trip scheduled, March 31, you were planning to leave. Do you have any ideas of what the airline industry or hotels or what have you would do to compensate travelers?
ZIFF: Well, there are a lot of new policies based around war or -- and/or, I should say the elevation to a red alert status. So should either of those come into effect, many of the carriers will allow people to change their tickets to another date or, in some instances, receive refunds without penalty. So the hotels, a lot of them have followed suit, also loosening their cancellation policies, as have many cruise lines.
The industry is looking ahead. They've been preparing for this and trying to figure how the out how to encourage people feel comfortable with making summer travel plans at the same time, you know, wanting them to know they're going to look out for them.
NEVILLE: OK.
ZIFF: The industry is really hurting so they're looking for ways to encourage and take care of their customers.
NEVILLE: Absolutely. Amy Ziff, Travelocity.com, thanks so much for being with us this morning.
ZIFF: My pleasure.
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