Bali finds Aussies still lucrative

Ary Hermawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The latest travel warning slapped against Indonesia by the Australian government, particularly against Bali, will not discourage the exotic and culturally-rich island from continuing to lure visitors from the southern neighbor it warmly calls "the land of the kangaroos".

"We are currently eying emerging markets such as China, India and Russia, but Australia will remain a lucrative market.

"Australian visitors are one of the largest groups coming to Bali, seconded only by Japanese," Gde Nurjaya, head of the island's tourism agency, said Tuesday on the sidelines of a hearing with regional councilors.

Nurjaya said the Australian travel advisories, which have been consistently renewed and reissued each time the country has received what it calls reliable information of an "imminent" terror attack, should be understood in the proper context.

"If Australia is a father, then it is just trying to protect its children. It is indeed understandable," he said.

Many officials, especially lawmakers, have reacted negatively to the travel warning and feared the adverse impact it could have on Bali's tourism industry.

However, Nurjaya said he remains upbeat that the warning "would not severely affect" the number of foreign tourists visiting Bali.

"We can only evaluate the impact of the latest advisory after the next three months have passed," he said.

The Bali Tourism Board says that on average around 215,000 Australians have visited Bali annually since 2001. The figure fell to 139,000 in 2003 as a result of a first deadly Bali bombing, but rose back to 267,000 in 2004.

However, after the second Bali bombing in 2005 in Jimbaran and Kuta -- which was perhaps amplified by the complications surrounding the Bali nine case in which three Australians were sentenced to death for drug trafficking -- the number plunged to below 120,000.

Despite all this, with the number of local and foreign tourist arrivals on the increase and confidence that the island's tourism industry has somewhat recovered from the damaging reputation of being a terror target, travel agencies and tourism officials were optimistic about 2007.

As of May this year, the number of Australian tourists had reached 65,551, accounting for 10 percent of all foreign tourist arrivals on Bali. Around 129,000 Japanese tourists flocked to Bali's beaches in the same period. "International tourist numbers from the Asia Pacific increased by 35 percent," Nurjaya said.

However, the Australian government's travel advisory early this month shook the island's newfound confidence as it abruptly followed a European Union flight ban on Indonesian airlines. Travel agencies believe that the number of tourists traveling from Europe to Bali will likely drop by at least 30 percent as a result.

"Australia is of course a market that we have to continuously develop," he said when asked if the travel advisories from Australia would force Bali to turn to other markets such as China and Russia.

He said the island's tourism agency was currently looking into training a portion of its workforce to speak Russian, Indian or Chinese in a bid to begin developing those markets.