After last year's terrorist attacks at resorts in Tunisia, Bali and Kenya, it's clear tourists are at seen as 'soft targets'. But if you're determined to take a long-haul holiday in 2003, how can you minimise the risk? Sarah Marriott points the way.

Grey skies, incessant rain and gloomy predictions for 2003 - it's little wonder the New Year has begun with people queuing in travel agencies, desperate for some sun and fun. But after last year's terrorist attacks which killed about 235 people in tourist resorts in Tunisia, Bali and Kenya, choosing a holiday is no longer as easy as sticking a pin in a map of the world.

Travellers planning a long-haul trip need to do their homework and assess risks before booking. Not surprisingly, the Department of Foreign Affairs has issued warnings against all non-essential travel to Indonesia, including Bali (although this is currently under review), Venezuela, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It also advises Irish citizens to be vigilant in India and "exercise extreme caution in public places in Thailand including popular tourist resorts, in particular the island of Phuket".

The UK Foreign Office has gone one step further, issuing a worldwide travel warning: "UK nationals worldwide should be aware of the risk of indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets in public places, including tourist sites".

As well as Phuket, it has recently identified Tanzania, Zanzibar and nearby Pemba as potential targets of terrorist attack, and on its website warns: "British nationals should be vigilant in hotels, restaurants, bars and nightclubs".Following a bomb in McDonalds in Makassar, Indonesia, which killed three people, its newly updated advice states: "The risk of further attacks on Westerners remains high". The US State Department has current warnings against travel for US citizens to 27 countries, from Algeria to Yemen.

But what about the common perception that carrying an Irish passport provides some kind of protection, compared with having a British or US passport? "The belief that if you're Irish you're OK - that 'everyone loves the Irish' - won't wash," says Alan Neenan of Neenan Travel in Dublin, who organised a recent conference on travel security. "Nobody is immune. The Australians, like the Irish, would have considered themselves quite safe before Bali. Now the focus of terrorism has changed. And, as the indiscriminate killing of people in Bali showed, where extremists are concerned, you're Western and you're going to be targeted."

Neenan, who specialises in business travel, has clients whose staff regularly go to high-risk destinations. "In security terms, Bali was seen as high-risk even before the bombing. The risk there has heightened over the last five to eight years, as lots of fundamentalists have been moving into the area."

He recommends that travellers planning a trip should weigh up the information provided on the UK Foreign Office website, which upgrades or downgrades risk, sometimes on a daily basis. And worst-case scenario? He advises companies sending staff to extremely high-risk areas - what he calls the "stan" countries (Kurdistan, Uzbekistan etc) - to be aware of where they are at all times and, chillingly, to keep dental and blood records so that families don't have to fly out to identify a body.

Irish travellers, however, don't seem put off by international terrorism's new focus on the "soft target" of tourists.

"The increase in terrorist activity has had no major impact overall. People still wish to travel," says Brendan Moran of the Irish Travel Agents Association. "Airlines going to Australia and the Far East had a record year in 2002 and attribute it to the mood in the economy and young people wanting to travel."

After a terrorist attack, it doesn't take long for "travel to resume", according to Trailfinders, the long-haul specialists whose top destinations for 2003 are Australia, the US, South Africa and the Far East, particularly Thailand. "New York was back to normal two to three months after September 11th. If the price is right, people will go."

Although travel to Indonesia has dropped dramatically since the October bomb there, Destinations travel agency in Dublin recently had one booking.

"A gentleman in his 40s was determined to go to Bali for Christmas," says Róisín Carbery, who showed him the warning from the Department of Foreign Affairs. "I admired him; he was intelligent in his choice. Never to go back is the wrong way to look at it. After it happened in Bali, it's the last place it's going to happen again."

Gerry Mullins, editor of Backpacker magazine, agrees: "It was Bali a few months ago, it could be somewhere else next month. Then Bali will seem like a distant memory; it will seem like the safest place on Earth. And Ireland is a dangerous place - people travelling to Cork or Kerry could die in a car crash."

He believes people going to countries with ongoing conflict, such as Israel, are in greater danger, although young people don't wait for wars to end before going somewhere: "If they're going, they're going".

Although the Bali bomb has created "a certain amount of fear that mainland Australia is a target," Mullins says, "I don't see this rippling through to people's decision-making".

"How are you going to second guess al-Qaeda, the Basques or the IRA?" asks one Wexford woman, in USIT to book a flight to New Zealand. "If you're worried about travelling, you'd never leave Wexford. Life is for living."

One South African man living in Dublin and booking a ticket to Thailand agrees: "If you're too scared to go to Bali, to Bangkok, you're too scared to go to anywhere. You can sit in the middle of your room and the roof can fall in on you." His wife, however, says she feels nervous on flights within the EU: "I feel safer on long-haul flights because security inside Europe is not so good".

Deirdre Mullins, a nurse from Dublin - who was on the Muslim island of Sumatra when Kuta was bombed, went to Bali a few days after the attack because "lightning doesn't strike twice".

Currently in Australia, she believes the media hype the terrorism issue. She felt safe in Bali because "it was not the Hindu Balinese people who intended this bomb. They were so welcoming and happy to see some tourists arrive when everyone was leaving.

"The bomb was a big topic of discussion among travellers, but appears to be much bigger at home. I received so many e-mails from family and friends who were worried about me being in Indonesia. But it could happen at any time and I'm not going to change what I want to do and live in fear."

Not all travellers are fatalistic, however. "Terrorist attacks are random, but I think there are certain precautions you can take," says one Dubliner who is planning a trip around South-East Asia. He takes seriously the advice of the Department of Foreign Affairs to avoid crowded, tourist areas.

"I wouldn't go anywhere Australians, Americans, British and Israelis are to be found in vast numbers, because they seem to be prime targets. In Thailand, I'd stay away from high-density tourist areas like Phuket and Khao San Road in Bangkok, and I wouldn't go to any country with a sizeable Muslim population, like Malaysia or Indonesia."

For less cautious but budget-conscious travellers - who are willing to take a risk if they can get a cheap holiday - there is bad news. Unlike New York in the post-September 11th period, prices in Phuket and Bali have not fallen. Although travel agencies such as Twohigs include Bali in its 2003 brochure (in the expectation the Department of Foreign Affairs will downgrade its warning), there are no special deals.

"After the bomb, Bali realised they were going to suffer," says a Twohigs spokesman, "and are holding out."

In the popular British destination of Phuket, where hotel occupancy during the November-December high season was down by 20 to 30 per cent, there is a belief that security issues and price are not connected, so no bargains are available there either.

Although security awareness around the world has increased in recent months, there are no guarantees against terrorism attacks in 2003.

Travellers who were in Indonesia during the Bali tragedy will never forget it. After the bombing, Orla Mulrooney from Limerick, leaving the Muslim island of Flores to head for what she saw as the relative safety of Bali, says her partner was taunted by local people laughing and repeating "Osama bin Laden".

Still travelling in South-East Asia, she says: "There is no doubt that some people I've met and made friends with died there - or worse. I'll just never know who . . . The horror of the bomb is still there. Not just the bomb, but the fact that the whole world is a very, very different place now."

Travel advice is available from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Lo-Call 1890-426700, ask for consular section.

Where not to go

Do not travel to:

Burundi

Central African Republic

Iraq

Ivory Coast

Liberia

Venezuela

Yemen

Avoid non-essential travel to:

Algeria

Angola

East Timor

Haiti

Indonesia

Pakistan

Sierra Leone

Avoid certain parts of:

Colombia

Ecuador

India

Israel

Namibia

Philippines

Sri Lanka

Travel advice is from the UK Foreign Office. Tel: 0044-2070080232. Website: www.fco.gov.uk