Poll: Will you avoid travel to India?

In the past decade, India has gone from a place that relatively few Americans visited to one of the top international destinations for U.S. residents, ahead of other locales like Brazil, Switzerland and Greece. But some travelers are now canceling plans to visit because of safety concerns following the Mumbai attacks.

Now that the Department of State has issued a travel alert for India, and it's unclear how long it will take for tourism to the region to bounce back.

The U.S. was the No. 1 source of foreign tourists arriving in India in 2007, according to the Government of India's Bureau of Immigration, followed by visitors from the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, Canada and France.

Travelers don't always react in predictable ways to terrorism. After the Madrid bombings in 2004, U.S travel to Spain increased 8 percent between 2004 and 2005.

A manager at the Four Seasons Hotel Mumbai reports that some people left because the events they had come for were canceled. But he hasn't seen a panic exodus. The hotel is primarily used by business executives.

Franziska Nagy, a recent graduate from Berlin who was traveling around the world, arrived in Mumbai last week. She plans to keep traveling and says she'll return to India. "Terror is everywhere. It was in London, Spain, and America," she said. "We'll come back."

What's your stance on this issue?

Photos: Getty Images

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Comments

[oldkingtroll]

This is ridiculous. India is a huge country; Mumbai is just a city. While the terrorist attack riveted the world's attention, it was localized to a few sites in that city.

After 9/11, travel to and within the U.S. droppped; eventually, it came back. The same will happen here.

[Hawaii Guy]

India's people and cuisine are reasons enough to go to India. The beautiful Taj Mahal hotel is an architectural marvel worth seeing as part of your visit to Mumbai. Stay there if you can afford it, and ask for a room in the original hotel, not the tower. It's just incredible to wake up in this beautiful structure, to the sounds and scents of old Bombay.

[Zohran]

I am not going to hide because of terrorism. We are not safe any where in a free country like India or the US. I work in downtown Chicago and a terrorist attack is always at the back of my head. I was in India earlier this March and I loved it. Will go again in 2009.

[Ravee]

I was born in Mumbai and I have an emotional attachment to that city even though I never lived there long enough. That being said, there have been numerous attacks on Mumbai but the city's heart still beats. Will I stop going to Mumbai and succumb to terror?? NEVER IN MY LIFE.

There is lot more to Mumbai than the Taj, Oberoi and VT station. If the terrorists think that attacking those structures will bring Mumbai down, they are wrong. Soon it will be forgotten.

[Ravee]

I was born in Mumbai and I have an emotional attachment to that city even though I never lived there long enough. That being said, there have been numerous attacks on Mumbai but the city's heart still beats. Will I stop going to Mumbai and succumb to terror?? NEVER IN MY LIFE.

There is lot more to Mumbai than the Taj, Oberoi and VT station. If the terrorists think that attacking those structures will bring Mumbai down, they are wrong. Soon it will be forgotten.

[tazman]

Are you kidding, travel to India. I have no respect for a county that cant get its human rights issues in line. The woman there are treated like dogs. If they dont accept a pre-aranged marriage, they are beaten, axed or burned to death. And if a woman talks to another man the husbad can shoot her in the back and get away with it. Shame on the men of this county, it makes me sick!