APPENDIX 4
Memorandum submitted by the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office on the Travel Advice System (8 January 1999)
Over 45 million UK residents travelled overseas
last year. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) attaches
great importance to providing travellers with accurate and timely
assessments of any risks they may face.
FCO Travel Advice is based on objective assessments
of the risks to British nationals. It is not influenced by trade
or political considerations. The safety of British travellers
is the FCO's paramount concern. The travel trade value and respect
Travel Advice. Other governments, for example in the European
Union, hold it in high regard, regularly drawing on it and consulting
the FCO about setting up their own similar systems.
The FCO runs a Travel Advice Unit in its Consular
Division with a full time staff of four, supervised by a senior
manager. Travel Advice warns British nationals of risks to their
personal safety and security overseas. It draws on a variety of
sources including the local knowledge and experience of the FCO's
overseas Posts. It is automatically reviewed monthly, and following
each significant incident. In a developing crisis the advice is
often updated daily, or even more frequently. More than 1,000
Travel Advice notices covering over 150 countries were issued
in 1998.
Travel Advice provides practical and up-to-date
advice to allow British nationals to make their own informed decisions
about travel. It only advises against all travel to a destination
when risks to personal security are very high. If necessary, specific
locations within a country are identified as areas to avoid (see,
for example, the Travel Advices for India, Russia and Turkey).
The advice is exactly that: advice. HMG cannot
stop British nationals travelling to a destination against such
advice. In the highest risk cases the FCO make every effort to
contact all individuals it believes to be in a country where it
is advising against travel in order to try to persuade them to
leave (recent examples include Afghanistan, Chechnya and Iraq).
The FCO works closely with the travel industry
in disseminating Travel Advice. It is posted on the Internet (regular
users can register to be automatically notified by e-Mail of all
updates of Travel Advice) and on BBC2 Ceefax pages 470 onwards;
it is issued by fax; and it is available by telephone from the
Travel Advice Unit (advice on the most popular tourist destinations
is on a recorded message) and from the FCO's Posts overseas. Significant
changes to Travel Advice are publicised in press statements. The
FCO encourages travel agents to draw Travel Advice to the attention
of their clients and is always looking for cost effective means
to extend its dissemination.
Travel Advice for Yemen was revised on 20 December
(following air strikes against Iraq); and on 29 December following
the violent end to the kidnapping; the 20 December advice warned
of continuing tension in the region and advised British nationals
to keep in touch with developments; it also warned of the risk
of random kidnapping throughout the country; it stated that "abductions
had taken place at gunpoint but that those abducted had generally
been well treated and had eventually been released unharmed after
mediation". This was an accurate reflection of the situation
up to that point; travellers were advised to register with the
British Embassy at Sana'a who provided additional, more detailed
advice on travelling within the country; from 29 December it has
advised against all non-essential travel to Yemen.
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