MP urges warnings on risk to tourists: Travel agents 'not telling customers of danger areas'

TRAVEL companies should be required by law to warn customers about the dangers of travelling to some foreign destinations, Nigel Evans, the Conservative MP for Ribble Valley, will demand today.

The call follows evidence that days after five British tourists were injured by a terrorist bomb in Cairo, some travel agents were failing to pass on Foreign Office advice that 'complete security cannot be guaranteed' there.

Promising to raise the issue in the House of Commons, Mr Evans said yesterday: 'It is not good enough to wait until the tourist arrives to discover the true facts about the resort.'

The dangers for tourists abroad were highlighted again last week when a 72-year-old man was shot dead after he had strayed into a notorious drug-trafficking and prostitution area of Washington. At least eight foreign tourists have been killed in large American cities over the past year, six of them in Miami.

Last night's World In Action programme found that some travel agents were not passing on Foreign Office warnings about particular destinations.

Keith Betton, of the Association of British Travel Agents, said that if the Foreign Office advised against travelling to a country, as it did with India last year, agents and operators would immediately cease to offer it as a destination. But he added: 'All travellers are required to use a certain amount of common sense and the best is when they arrive, they should talk to people locally to find out areas which they should not go into. That's local information and is not something a travel agent in Barnsley is going to know.'

Patricia Yates, editor of Holiday Which, said it was 'inexcusable' for travel companies not to pass on information when there were direct threats against tourists.

A spokeswoman for Thomas Cook insisted that the company would not send customers to destinations that the Foreign Office had deemed dangerous, but added: 'There will always be a risk.'

Most of the bigger operators rely on company representatives to brief visitors on arrival.