Bird flu should not impact RI tourism
P.C. Naommy, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The current outbreak of bird flu disease in a number of Asian countries should not have a significant impact on the Indonesian tourism sector as long as the government takes measures to prevent the disease from becoming rampant in this country, according to tourism experts.
The experts also believed that the bird flu disease would be easier to control compared to last year's Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic, which has dealt a heavy blow to the region's tourism industry.
"Even if there will be an impact, I don't think that it will be significant particularly as Indonesia is still free from bird flu," said Metty Robot, deputy chairwoman of the Indonesian Tourism Society.
"Although it won't be as frightening as SARS, the government should have some measures in place to prevent it from becoming a problem."
But the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the bird flu outbreak, which has affected countries like Vietnam, South Korea, Japan and Thailand, could be more deadly than SARS.
Yanti Sukamdani of Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) was optimistic that the government could deal with the bird flu issue.
"As long as the government says that our poultry industry is safe and free from bird flu, then we shouldn't be worry. The key is trust, if we cannot trust our own government, who can we?," Yanti said.
Yanti also said that hotel management associations, in cooperation with the health agency has prepared for the worst by providing medical posts for hotel guests, the same as was done with SARS.
Yanti emphasized that hotel and restaurant customers should not be overly worried about eating poultry since all meat has undergone tight screening from the health agency.
The country's tourism sector has just started to recover from the spate of bad news like the SARS epidemic and a number of bombing incidents.
This year the government is targeting some 5 million foreign tourist arrivals, from 4.4 million last year.