Vilnius - The United Nations agency responsible for world tourism is preparing for an eventual pandemic of bird flu in humans to try to minimise its impact on the tourist industry, the agency's chief said Wednesday.

"For the moment, bird flu is a phenomenon affecting birds, it's an epidemic affecting animals, not people," said Francesco Frangialli, head of the World Tourism Organisation.

"For the moment there is no reason to not travel to any country in the world, provided people observe the recommendations of health and veterinary authorities."

The more than 90 people who have died from bird flu since 2003, mostly in Asia, contracted the disease after coming into contact with birds infected with the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of the virus.

But if the virus mutates and can be passed from human to human, "the tourist industry will suffer," he said. "The important thing is that it does not suffer more than necessary."

During the outbreak of the SARS disease, "Asian destinations like Thailand, Indonesia and Cambodia suffered, even though they had no reported cases of the virus. There was no justification for that," said Frangialli, who was speaking at a two-day tourism conference in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

The World Tourism Organisation is in communication with the World Health Organisation on bird flu, and members of the UN tourism agency will hold a meeting in Paris this month to hammer out a rapid action plan for the tourism industry in the event of a pandemic in humans.

"What we want is to obtain information in real time, to be capable of circulating this information in real time to national tourism authorities and to the private sector so they take the best decisions," Frangialli said.

Parts of Asia and Turkey have suffered a drop in tourism because of the spread of bird flu, he added.

"Up to now bird flu has not had a really significant impact on tourism, although some destinations in Asia and Turkey have experienced a drop," he said, without giving detailed figures.

The number of foreigners visiting Turkey in January fell 4,7 percent compared with the same month one year ago, according to government figures, although the drop was blamed on global tensions over caricatures published in the European press of Islam's prophet Mohammed as well as fears of bird flu.

The World Tourism Organisation is an agency of the United Nations. It describes its role as providing a global forum for tourism policy issues and a practical source of tourism know-how. - Sapa-AFP