El Zócalo, the heart of Mexico City's historic center, is generally packed

I wonder if PIA has reduced the number of flights into the Swat Valley's Saidu Sharif Airport this week. I suspect hotel rooms are going begging-- unless the Taliban militia has requisitioned them all. They don't need to though. Thousands of residents have been fleeing in every direction as the Pakistani Army prepares for a decisive military confrontation just a few hours northwest of the country's capital. Now Mexico is also in a touristic pickle. (The Swat Valley was one of Pakistan's most beloved tourist sites until the Taliban took it over and started brutalizing, raping and beheading women without head scarves and men without beards.)

In the midst of the drug-related violence and the swine flue epidemic, American Airlines is following the rest of the airline industry reducing the number of flights into Mexico. The tourist industry there is also in bad shape. Starting Friday and for the entire month of May and early June, American will reduce daily roundtrip flights from 42 to 31, citing "weaker demand." Continental is still flying, just using smaller planes and United is cutting its 64 weekly flights between the U.S. and Mexico to 24.

Generally flights to Mexico have been empty and flights back to the U.S. have been full, although today's NY Times is reporting that things are kind a/sorta getting back to normal-- if you think calling off Cinco de Mayo has anything to do with normal.

The authorities have been seeking to strike a balance between the health risk of widespread shutdowns and the economic cost of keeping parts of the economy shuttered. In Mexico, the nationwide impact on industries, including tourism, has cost about $2.3 billion, or between 0.3 percent and 0.5 percent of gross domestic product, Finance Minister Agustin Carstens said Tuesday.

The BBC reported this morning that there virtually is no tourism industry functioning in Mexico City right now. And its nearly as bad in the rest of the country. There are no foreign tourists at all and cruise lines have been canceling stops there.

Walk into the crisp, modernist lobby of the Camino Real hotel in the upmarket district of Polanco, and you will be treated as a bit of a novelty. Guests are far outnumbered by staff. The hotel has over 700 rooms. Less than 40 are occupied. The World Health Organization is the only regular customer these days.

...The closure of restaurants and other entertainment areas in the capital alone is costing as much as 100 million US dollars a day.

The Mexican economy, already devastated by a drop off in remittances from Mexican workers in the U.S., the second biggest source of income (between oil and tourists), is absolutely devastated now. This positively just kills the millions of low wage service workers involved with tourism-- waiters, musicians, maids, cooks, etc-- and it's spreading through the entire economy, which was already weakened by falling petroleum prices. The hotel occupancy rate in Mexico City is around 5%. That's also the estimated percentage that the economy is likely to contract by. Bloomberg is reporting that the swine flu epidemic is costing the Mexican economy about $145 million a day in gross domestic product. It's estimated that Mexico’s tourism revenue could fall 43 percent to $7.58 billion.

Not much tourism going on in Somalia

I'm putting the finishing touches on my return to Bali. I booked a flight from L.A. to Bangkok and then a hotel for one night in Bangkok, followed by a flight the next day to Bali, where I booked a beautiful villa on the outskirts of Ubud, far from the horrific tourist beaches down south. Last time I went to Bali-- about 3 years ago-- people were still frightened because of the 2005 suicide bombings in Jimbaran and Kuta, two congested and commercialized tourist areas.

I avoid places like Jimbaran and Kuta not because of terrorism but because they're filled with noisy partying tourists, mostly from Australia and Singapore but from everywhere. Bali has so much to offer and the southern tourist ghetto is a blight on everything good about the place. On the other hand, there are places I would avoid because of political danger. And last month's Forbes had a handy guide to the worst of the lot.

You'd probably guess that the worst of the lot, even beyond the tourist-unfriendly piracy, is Somalia. Most of the most dangerous states on earth are either Muslim or African. Somalia is both-- as well as a desperately poor failed state. The others in the top three are Afghanistan (one of the places I visited, in less unsettled times-- 1969 and 1972-- that I liked most) and Iraq. Also way up there are the Congo, Sudan, Pakistan, Yemen, Georgia (in the Caucasus, not the one in the U.S.), Nigeria, Algeria, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Sri Lanka (another place I've loved visiting, both before and even during the civil war), Palestine, Zimbabwe. And then there's parts of Mexico, although not the parts that tourists normally go to visit (unless you want to count swine flu as a danger). I don't usually care what officials say about what's too dangerous to visit and what isn't. They tend to be overly cautious. But not always. The U.S. State Dept. advises against Timbuktu but they're wrong about it. It's very safe. If, on the other hand you're reading about civil war and terrorism in the newspapers, it's better to stay away.


UPDATE: I'd Stay Away From Pakistan

Turns out Dick Cheney didn't order the hit on Benazir Bhutto after all. Still, you have to be a real pollyanna to go anywhere near Pakistan these days.