They said the tsunami will cost the tourism industry about three billion dollars in losses.

"Although the impact of the tsunami has been significant, it is generally limited to a short list of specific destinations," Richard Miller, of the World Travel and Tourism Council, said before the opening of the industry's fifth global summit.

Apart from the financial losses, the tragedy has cost more than 250,000 tourism jobs, Miller said.

This is much less, the industry said, than the economic devastation caused by the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States which killed about 3,000 people and for which Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.

"The impact of 9/11 in the United States was 37.5 times larger in monetary terms than the tsunami and 2.8 times larger in terms of impact on employment," a press release issued at the inauguration of the summit said.

Tourism-dependent nations like the Maldives, Thailand and Sri Lanka were the worst-affected by the December 26 tsunamis triggered by a huge undersea earthquake off Indonesia. More than 217,000 people in 11 countries died in the disaster.

Many hotels and resorts shut down after the tsunamis inundated beaches around the Indian Ocean, Miller said.

The summit forecast worldwide growth of 5.4 percent in the tourism sector in the current year, pushing the value of business done in the sector to 2.6 trillion dollars. Montenegro, China and India would be the top three destination countries driving the industry, the summit said.

Inaugurating the gathering, Indian President Abdul Kalam called for increasing tourist arrivals in India from 3.7 million now to 15 million in the next five years and 25 million in the next decade.

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