Greg Dickinson, Senior Travel Writer at The Telegraph, says:
I think many readers would be similarly nervous to travel to a destination where missiles are being intercepted and blasted out of the sky. But I also suspect some readers would read your predicament and say “you’ve been told it’s safe, just go!” – clearly there are a few points to unpack here.
The first is that, for most tour operators, if the FCDO does not formally change its travel advice, the trip will go ahead. It would take an updated warning against “non-essential” travel or against “all travel” for the trip to be cancelled. At this point, customers like yourself should be offered an alternative holiday or a full refund, as per the Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018.
As you say, the FCDO advice page for Jordan does indeed warn against terrorist attacks in Jordan, although it is worth noting that many popular holiday spots, such as France and the USA, come with even stronger-worded warnings that “terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks” with similar notes about public areas that could be targeted. This is a longstanding piece of advice on the Jordan page and has not been updated in recent weeks.
The real tension arises because, while Jordan remains green-lit for travel (with the exception of the area within 3km of the Syrian border), the FCDO updated its advice on October 2 to warn of “falling fragments and debris in some parts of Jordan” as a result of missiles targeted at Israel being intercepted above the country. The video you sent me, via a contact who lives in Amman, of missile debris falling from the sky was distressing. If missiles being blown out of the sky is not grounds for a non-essential travel warning, then what is?
When I contacted the Foreign Office asking this very question, a spokesman said: “We constantly review our travel advice for each country or territory to ensure it includes up-to-date information and advice on the most relevant issues for British people visiting or living there.”
