Business travel to India on hold

Companies in Philadelphia and worldwide were clamping down on travel to Mumbai yesterday, as the terrorist attacks in India reverberated on many fronts.
GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C., which is based in London and has large operations in the Philadelphia area, said it had suspended employee travel to India for now.
AstraZeneca P.L.C., which has extensive operations in Wilmington and a research and development facility in Hyderabad, India, said it had suspended employee travel to Mumbai.
Merck & Co. Inc. also said it had suspended travel to Mumbai. Merck, which is based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., and manufactures vaccines in West Point, could not provide information about its Indian operations because the company was closed in the United States for the Thanksgiving holiday.
AppLabs, an information technology outsourcing company with offices in Philadelphia, employs 1,600 people in Hyderabad, about a one-hour flight from Mumbai. The company said its employees were safe.
The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton school said two employees for the Indian edition of its Knowledge@Wharton online publication were safe. Editor Mukul Pandya said one employee had left the office just a half-hour before the attack.
The attacks hit India's tourist industry at the start of peak season, compounding problems for airlines and hotels facing the slowest growth in visitor numbers in five years.
Terrorist attacks aimed at foreign tourists, such as the Mumbai assaults, may hurt hotel bookings and airline-ticket sales for more than a year. The island of Bali, which accounts for one-third of all foreign tourists to Indonesia, had not recovered a year after the 2002 bomb that killed 202 people, according to a World Bank report.
29/11/08 Miriam Hill/Philadelphia Inquirer, USA

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Categories: Foreign Nov 2008, Indian Aviation- In General Nov 2008