Senior Olympic member Kevan Gosper of Australia said yesterday that Greece and the International Olympic Committee had overreacted to Australia's travel warnings over the Athens Olympics.

　　The updated advisory from Australia's department of foreign affairs and trade came after bomb attacks in Athens last week at the start of the 100-day countdown to the Games.

　　"Australians in Greece are advised to exercise caution and keep themselves informed of developments that might affect their safety," part of the advice said.

　　Greece and the IOC criticized the move, but Gosper, a senior member of the IOC, said the advice was credible.

　　"It contains good and sound advice to people traveling in Greece and that's a normal responsibility of a government to upgrade that level of advice, if there's been some incident as there was in Greece last week," he told the Nine television network yesterday.

　　"But people should keep it in perspective.

　　"It doesn't alter the plans of the Australian Olympic Committee to send the team away, there's a very close contact between the Australian government, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Olympic Committee and everything is still on course.

　　"So I'm a bit surprised at the overreaction of the Greeks themselves and any member of the International Olympic Committee in Europe at the moment."

　　Gosper said he realized his comments contradicted some of his IOC colleagues, who were angry about Australia's travel warning, but said it was not their job to criticize the Australian government.

　　"These are sensitive times for the Greeks, there's been a lot of pressure on them and I can understand some anxieties," he said.

　　"But it's not our policy in the International Olympic Committee to criticize Australian governments or any other government in the world. I think the International Olympic Committee should remain calm."

　　Meanwhile, a top tourism think-tank said on Wednesday that tourists are staying away from Greece not primarily due to security fears but by unscrupulous Greeks trying to cash in on the 2004 Olympics with hefty price rises.

　　"The security issue is a secondary factor," said Panagiotis Pavlopoulos, head of the Research Institute for Tourism in Athens.

　　"Spain expects more tourists this year despite the terrorist attacks in March."

　　"Our hotels are not expensive but everything else ... is expensive," he said. "Visitors will pay hefty prices for coffee, turn their backs and never come back."

　　Earlier this month, the head of the Greek government tourism authority EOT said Athens hotel owners were pushing for exorbitant price increases for the Olympics, with some hotel prices seven or eight times as high as last year.

　　(The Associated Press)