The anticipated winding down of hostilities in Iraq means Foreign Office restrictions on travel to most surrounding countries are likely to be removed, according to travel industry sources.

'As long as there is no great Arab backlash I think they will, and certainly should, relax the travel advice in the next few weeks,' said Association of British Travel Agents head of corporate affairs Keith Betton.

The FO warned British nationals against holiday travel to Jordan, Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Syria, Lebanon and south-eastern Turkey, and against all travel to Kuwait and Israel and the Occupied Territories, just before the war began three weeks ago. Travel companies immediately cancelled all trips to these countries, as insurance is almost impossible to secure in the face of the FO advice.

An FO spokeswoman said: 'We are looking at the travel advice in that region. It may well be that there is a blanket relaxation.'

But she said that while one of the reasons given for the warnings - the threat of Iraqi bombardment - appeared to be over, the other - terrorism - was harder to quantify.

Betton believes that Jordan, Syria and the Emirates (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Oman and Qatar) should be cleared for travel shortly. 'There is a lot of demand to visit the superb cities of Damascus and Palmyra [in Syria], and it should be possible soon,' he said.

However, Mark Wright, managing director of Travelbag Adventures, which has put its operations to Jordan and Syria on hold, feels Syria is likely to be reinstated later than Jordan: 'There are question marks over Syria and Iran while Bush has his sights fixed on them.'

There is no restriction on travel to Iran but many companies cancelled trips there in case the advice changed at the last minute. Explore Worldwide was one of these. Its operations director, Derek Moore, also believes Jordan and the Emirates will be cleared for travel sooner than Syria, while Iran may become more restricted.

But he is confident that the conflict will not have put travellers off the Middle East. 'The sooner they lift the restrictions the quicker that area will be back in people's minds as possible destinations,' he said. 'Western travellers will flood into the region.'

To illustrate how travellers' decisions respond quickly to news reports, Moore related how phone traffic to the Explore Worldwide travel lines jumped by 10 per cent immediately after Iraqi General Ali Hassan al-Majid ('Chemical Ali') was reported killed last week.

An early sign of returning confidence has come from British Air ways which reinstated direct flights to Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai and Jordan this weekend. Services to Jeddah and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia will continue to fly via Larnaca, while flights to Kuwait remain suspended.

Even Iraq itself is back on the tourism menu. Adventure company Hinterland Travel is planning 15-day tours around Iraq from as early as June. Director Geoff Hann said: 'Let us do something now... it is surely better to bring commerce, customers, anything, so that people can work, feed their families and feel self-reliant again.'

But avid traveller Phil Haines - the youngest person ever to visit all 192 sovereign countries - was more pessimistic. His company Live Travel has been sending tours to Iraq since 1997 but even though he has been taking tours into Afghanistan since last August he has no plans to do the same in Iraq. 'There is still a lot of instability, and travel is a long way off,' he said. He said the country's shattered infrastructure - human and material - needed to be repaired first. The Sheraton Hotel in Basra, where Live Travel tours used to stay, has been ransacked by looters who have taken everything from beds to plumbing pipes.

Haines also feels there is less of a need to restart tourism in Iraq than in Afghanistan, since it is a more trifling economic factor for the Iraqis.

Another concern is pilfering of the valuable antiquities of Iraq. This happened in Afghanistan following war last year, with artefacts smuggled out via Pakistan. Many of them are believed to have ended up in Europe. 'It's a beautiful country with fascinating people,' he said. 'I'd like to go there when people are back to their normal lives.'

· Foreign & Commonwealth Office travel advice (0870 606 0290).