Indonesian flights empty over Y2K fears<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Lack of promotion about Indonesia's readiness to
\nface the Y2K bug has caused a drop in the number of tourist
\narrivals to the holiday resort island of Bali during the New Year
\nholiday period, a local official claimed.<\/p>\n
The head of the Ministry of Tourism, Art and Culture's office
\nin Bali, Luther Barrung, said in Denpasar on Saturday that some
\nflights had to be canceled due to the low of number of
\npassengers.<\/p>\n
\"The fall in arrivals can be seen in the small number of
\nEuropean tourists,\" said Luther.<\/p>\n
He pointed out that there were only a small amount of
\npassengers boarding Garuda Indonesia flights from Europe, forcing
\nthe national flag carrier to cancel its flights during the New
\nYear holiday.<\/p>\n
He noted that out of 200 Japanese tourists, there were only 70
\nconfirmed passengers.<\/p>\n
Luther said that reports of Indonesia's unreadiness to face
\nthe supposed Y2K bug had turned many tourists away.<\/p>\n
The Y2K bug refers to a programming glitch in computers
\nwhereby when their clocks turned to '00' at midnight on Friday
\nlast, many systems may not have recognized the date as 2000, but
\nrather as 1900, resulting in problems ranging from billing errors
\nto power outages. However, as has been the case since the roll
\nover date, there have been few problems reported.<\/p>\n
\"This is all due to a lack of promotion from various national
\ninstitutions, causing tourists to think that Indonesia really
\nisn't prepared to face the impact of the Y2K bug,\" he said as
\nquoted by Antara.<\/p>\n
The head of Garuda's office in Denpasar, Mohammad Azhar, also
\nremarked that the airline had to cancel its Denpasar-Perth and
\nDenpasar-London routes for the New Year because there was simply
\nno demand.<\/p>\n
\"Most of the tourists from abroad, particularly those from
\nEurope, were worried about the Y2K bug and chose to cancel their
\ndepartures,\" he explained. (mds)<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/indonesian-flights-empty-over-y2k-fears-1447893297",
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