Islamabad: When the United States began bombing Afghanistan, hotels in neighbouring Pakistan played host to an army of foreign journalists. Ten months later, tourism has gone from feast to famine.

The reporters who set up camp here to report on the US campaign against al-Qaida and the Taleban have since departed, but their reports on bombings and violence in Pakistan live on and have helped drive holidaymakers away.

Hotel rooms were a prized commodity as journalists kicked their heels here waiting to get into Afghanistan, at the start of the US campaign.

The bureau chief of a European daily recalls how she paid $ 115 to sleep in the hallway at the deluxe Marriott Hotel in Islamabad while in the Northern city of Peshawar, she shared the food and beverage manager's office.

Even the hotel rooftops were rented at sky-high prices to foreign television crew to set up their satellite transmitting equipment.

But the heyday was short lived. The journalists left once the Taleban was routed and they could move freely into Afghanistan.

And only the most hardy, or fool hardy, tourists have made Pakistan their holiday destination since a string of fatal attacks on foreigners from this March and a looming threat of war with India.

A grenade attack on a group of European tourists travelling along the Karakoram highway to China earlier this month was just the latest assault on Pakistan's tourism industry.

In January, US journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped from the Southern port city of Karachi and later murdered, allegedly by Islamic extremists.

In March, five people, including two American nationals, were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a church inside the diplomatic enclave in Islamabad.

And then in May, 11 French naval engineers were killed in a suicide bomb attack in Karachi while the US consulate there was bombed in June, killing 12 Pakistanis.

Most European nations have asked their nationals to avoid non-essential travel to Pakistan. Diplomats have cut down on their staff here.

However, Britain and the United States revised their travel advisories on July 22, but warned that Westerners were still a target for terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

Despite armed guards posted outside luxury five-star hotels in the capital and Karachi, most of the country's 35,524 hotel rooms now stand empty, according to industry estimates.

About 2,000 hotel employees are estimated to have lost their jobs in the violence plagued city of Karachi alone as occupancy rates dipped to about 15 per cent after the recent spate of suicide bombings, according to the figures.

The country's top travel agency, Walji's Family of Business, said it was struggling to stay afloat and was being subsidised by a family division selling airline tickets to outbound travellers.

"We have hit ground zero," said Shirin S Walji, the chairwoman of Waljis that accounted for nearly two thirds of the country's inbound tourism business.

Pakistan had also banked on mopping up Nepal's adventure tourism as the Himalayan kingdom was in the throes of a violent Maoist rebellion. The world's second highest mountain, K2, is in Pakistan near the Chinese border along the picturesque Karakoram range.

But Walji said the mountaineers were giving Pakistan a wide berth despite lower prices. The official Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation said last year there were 499,700 visitors, down from 556,800 in 2000.

However, travel agents said the figures were misleading as most of the 'visitors' were overseas Pakistanis visiting family and friends rather than high-spending tourists.

Walji said the agents might have to look to neighbouring countries to fill the empty hotel rooms.

Pakistan's Buddhist sites could attract pilgrims from Myanmar, China, Nepal, Thailand and Sri Lanka, while easing visa restrictions should encourage them to visit a country Westerners have been avoiding.