Dirk Glaesser, Risk and Crisis Management Chief at the World Tourism Organization
Experts from international organisations, governments and the private sector have gathered in Paris to address the growing problem of road safety among tourists.
The FIA Foundation’s International Tourism and Road Safety Seminar held on 24 September, involved high level representatives from a range of bodies including the World Tourism Organisation, the World Bank, the US State Department and BP. The delegates heard that road accidents now outstrip all other causes of death for travellers.
John White, Transport Strategy Consultant is conducting research for the FIA Foundation on International Tourism and Road Safety. He highlighted the scale of the problem. “The World Health Organisation has recognised that traffic collisions are the most frequent cause of death among travellers. The problem is that tourists arrive mostly unaware of the risk they are taking,” he said. Mr. White noted that a common problem is that people travel from low risk countries with good road safety records to high risk areas and are not prepared for different conditions.
According to initial estimates from the FIA Foundation research, worldwide, tourist road fatalities will be on the increase over the next two decades.
Dirk Glaesser, Risk and Crisis Management Chief at the World Tourism Organization said that the issue is a major global problem. “Tourists are vulnerable. They are unaware of their surroundings and the road signs they are faced with. Also, what actually defines tourism is that people are likely to take part in more unusual activities that they would do at home,” he told the seminar.
“We agree that this is an important issue to be addressed. We see that the number of accidents are increasing. What we have to ensure are that the signalling effects of road accidents are reduced. These are the effects which cause the wider impacts – they have enormous effects on the tourism industry and the economy of host countries.”
Delegates at the seminar were told how tourism raises some key concerns and unique issues for road safety:
- Road fatality risks are the highest risks tourists are likely to face;
- Travel and tour operators, the transport sector and associated industries generally haven’t focussed on the importance of tourist road safety;
- There is also a lack of authoritative road safety information particularly at the time its needed; and
- Road safety policies would need to take account of changes in behaviour among people when they are on holiday as well as unfamiliarity, fatigue, distraction and disorientation.
In wide ranging policy discussions, delegates at the seminar discusses ways to communicate critical road safety information with tourists as well as the possibility of global campaigns and events to raise public awareness of the issue. Many delegates at the Seminar had been alerted to the issue of road safety when they found that large of numbers of their own staff were becoming involved in road traffic accidents.
Governments are beginning to take the issue seriously, with the US and UK in particular, initiating programmes on tourism and road safety.
The US State Department, has found that vehicle accidents are the most common cause of death for US travellers abroad. Catherine Barry, Consul General of France for the US State Department said:
“Road safety is covered by our consulates all over the world as a stand alone issue along with health and crime in the information we provide, particularly on our websites.”
The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) had launched a “Steer Clear of Trouble on Foreign Roads’ campaign after evidence from its consulates of high rates of road deaths and injuries.
Jess Prasad, Head of the Publicity Team Consular Communications at the FCO said: “Brits make around 70 million trips a year and 8 million drive when abroad. A lot of the most popular holiday destinations have the much higher rates of road related deaths. As much as 50% of hospitalisations and deaths in northern France alone were related to road accidents in 2007 and tourists are three times more likely than locals to be involved in a road accident.”
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