Last weekend, the State Council announced it would shorten the May Day holiday to discourage travel and prevent the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome.

"It seriously hurt our business," said Scott Smiley, general manager of Destination Travel, a well-known agency among expatriates in the city. "Since the first SARS case was confirmed in Shanghai, all our reservations were canceled."

The agency, which was set up in 1999 and has a database of 20,000 clients, had planned to shut down, but later the owners changed their mind.

"Some local travel agencies want to cooperate with us, so we decided not to close the door. I know it's a hard time, but we decided to survive the worst now."

Other local travel agencies are also struggling to survive.

According to Bai Xianxing of Shanghai China Travel Service, since April the number of overseas tourists who have booked tickets has dropped 90 percent, compared with the same period last year, while the company's revenues have decreased 64 percent.

Li Ming, vice president of the Shanghai Airlines Tours International Co Ltd, said 70 percent of its reservations have been canceled.

"Our business is totally interrupted, and all we are doing now is refunding our customers," said Wang Yujia, an official with the Dazhong International Travel Service.

The city has more than 500 travel agencies, but might soon have far fewer as many smaller companies are on the verge of closing.

The Shanghai Tourism Administrative Commission responded to the bleak situation on Monday with a series of suggestions to the travel agencies on how to deal with clients who want to cancel trips and how to seek cooperation from airlines and hotels.

"We aim to protect clients, and all their money have to be returned if they want to cancel a trip," said Huang Guangrong, an official with the commission.

"Meanwhile, we are also trying to persuade the airline companies and hotels to cooperate with the travel agencies to minimize their losses."

The commission is trying to get airlines and hotels to refund deposits that agencies have to pay when they set up tour groups.

Although it is not a compulsory, most of the airlines are being cooperative.

"We understand it, and we would like to return all the deposit money to the travel agencies," said Jiang Yan, a spokeswoman for Singapore Airlines Co Ltd.

(eastday.com April 24, 2003)