“This is like Armageddon for the travel business,” said Golden Yuan, the owner of Perfect Transportation and Travel Service in Los Angeles that specializes in group travel to China, the country worst affected by SARS.

“All our group bookings have been cancelled in the last two weeks and everyone is asking for full refunds. Nobody wants to go to Asia anymore.

“It’s a big problem because not only have we lost all our revenue, but we are being asked to refund more than 100,000 dollars to customers even though the Chinese airlines, hotels and tour operators are refusing to refund us.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve been in this business 12 years and have never known such hard times, not even after 9/11 or in the first Gulf War,” he said.

While many major airlines have waived cancellation and change penalties as SARS ravages Asia and amid the war in Iraq, many smaller carriers and tour operators are refusing to do the same, travel agents said.

“We are trapped between clients in America and the businesses in Asia and there doesn’t seem to be any way out for us,” said Yuan, adding that the US Department of Transportion and local congressmen had written to travel operators asking them to be lenient with travellers who cancel trips.”
We are asking people to postpone their trips instead of cancel, but they only want to cancel,” aid a source at Van Vic travel in San Francisco.

The crunch came after the United States warned its citizens to consider delaying non-essential travel to Guangzhou, China and Hong Kong which have been at the centre of the spread of the disease.

On Thursday, it said it would pay for US diplomats and their families to leave all posts in China as the scare deepened.

Meanwhile, scores of companies doing business with Asia have cancelled trips to the region amid fears that the disease will spread further, while holiday makers — also worried about the war — are staying away in droves.

At least one major China-oriented travel agency in the Los Angeles area has closed its doors in recent days, industry sources said. No one answered the phones at USA Vacation travel on Thursday.

“My phone has hardly rung at all since last week, except with passengers cancelling their trips to Asia,” said Le Luu, who runs Westminster Ticket Centre which lies in Los Angeles’ Orange County region.

“People are terrified by this illness and don’t want to get sick and die so hundreds of passengers are cancelling. The war was a problem for us and so was 9/11, but this is far worse than anything’s I’ve known,” she said.

Some 95 percent of Luu’s business in the Vietnamese-dominated area of Westminster, travel to Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong, southern China, Laos and Cambodia.

US travel agents who rely on Asian business are hurting badly because of SARS, far more than those who specialize in Europe and other areas of the world, said Bob Kerr of the American Society of Travel Agents.

SARS has infected 2,223 people and killed 78 as scientists battle to isolate the disease and find out how it is transmitted.

But each day of uncertainty is further eroding the travel industry which has been battling to overcome the devastating effects of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on US targets and a slowing world economy.

“I just hope they find out what it is quickly and stop it, or else I will be forced to close my business in the next week or so,” said one veteran travel agent in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

“Usually I take about 80 calls for tickets and travel inquiries a day, but I haven’t issued a single ticket in 10 days and my phones are all quiet,” she said. “I can’t hold out much longer, I’m going to be ruined.”