US travel to Spain holding up

U.S. travel demand to Spain appears to be holding up after the deadly train bombings in Madrid, reported the Associated Press out of Washington, DC. While a small percentage of travelers have canceled trips, industry officials stressed that it is too soon to tell how badly tourism to the region will suffer. Spain is the world’s No. 2 international tourist destination behind France, but it is not as popular as Britain, Germany and Italy among Americans. Of the 23 million U.S. residents who traveled abroad in 2002, the most recent year for which data is available, 4 percent, or 935,880, visited Spain, the Commerce Department told AP. Justin McNaull, a spokesman for AAA, formerly the American Automobile Association, said the travel agency’s European bookings are up 64% year-to-date compared with 2003. Spain “has been hot up until this point,” he said. And the impact of the bombings, which killed 200, it’s “still too early to tell,” responded Mr McNaull, who is based in Washington. Report by David Wilkening