U.S. travel agencies sway in the brink of bankruptcy

American travel agencies dealing with Asian destinations have pretty good chances of going belly up given the massive avalanche of cancellations triggered by the hard-hitting atypical respiratory syndrome (ARS), sources close to the sector informed.

The number of U.S. tourists flying to Asia dropped from 80 to 90 percent in the last couple of weeks. “It’s a catastrophe,” said Golden Yuan, owner of Perfect Transportation and Travel Service, an L.A.-based company specialized in sending groups of travelers to China.

“All of our group reservations were called off in the past two weeks and everybody demanded his money back,” Mr. Yuan explained. “It’s a serious problem not only because we lost all the profits, but also because we were forced to give over $100,000 back to customers since Chinese air companies, hotels and travel organizations refused to reimburse any money,” he concluded.