Foreign travelers told to avoid Indonesia

Foreign travelers told to avoid Indonesia

JAKARTA (JP): Foreign travelers have been advised to stay away
from Indonesia, as riots continue to sweep even the normally calm
areas across the country, triggering concerns for the already
troubled tourism industry.

As the United States urged its nationals to "consider
carefully" before traveling to Indonesia, and Japan maintains its
level 2 travel warning for the country, tourism-related
industries confessed they expected there would be worse to come.

"We expect things to stay this way until the general election
in June or until the end of the year," Meity Robot, head of the
Jakarta Chapter of the Association of Indonesian Tour and Travel
Agencies, told The Jakarta Post.

"Of course, we don't like to project such pessimism, but we
really cannot expect anything if people are still roaming the
country provoking riots," she said.

Meity said hotel occupancy rates now averaged at about 10
percent in Jakarta, one of the cities adversely affected by bad
press on Indonesia's turmoil.

Other places, like world-renowned Bali, the resort island of
Bintan, and the nearby commerce hub of Batam have remained
relatively unscathed by the violent frenzy engulfing other areas,
she said.

Since the fatal May riots, which culminated in president
Soeharto's resignation, Indonesia has been torn by a series of
upheavals, some of which many people believe were politically
motivated.

The latest was last week's bloody inter-religious clash in the
country's eastern island of Maluku, which has claimed over 50
lives.

The violence prompted the United States to warn its nationals
of Indonesia's unstable political and economic situation which
"is likely to remain so leading up to the June 1999 parliamentary
elections and the selection of a new president a few months
later."

Australia has advised its citizens intending to travel to
Indonesia to be aware of the "likelihood of continuing public
disturbances and political demonstrations in Jakarta and in other
centers in Indonesia which have the potential to turn violent
without warning."

The consular service's travel advice noted an increase in
robberies and street crimes in the country.

Japan has not renewed its travel advisory level since the
fatal shootings of protesting students around Jakarta's Semanggi
junction in November which claimed 16 lives.

But the current level 2 travel advisory status recommends
Japanese suspend all nonessential travel to all destinations in
Indonesia, except Bali.

Japan normally imposes the most stringent travel advisory to
its citizens.

After the May riots, it imposed a level 3 travel warning,
banning all travel to Indonesia. In September, it downgraded the
warning to traveling with caution, level 1, until the Semanggi
incident.

The spokesman for Japan's Information and Cultural Section,
Shigeya Aoyama, said the warning level could go as high as level
5, the necessity to evacuate the country, if conditions worsened.

The manager of tour operators Vista Ekspres, Rudyanto, said on
Wednesday that three international cruise liners which were
scheduled to berth in Maluku's capital of Ambon next month had
changed their original plans.

Vista was supposed to operate city tours in Ambon for the
passengers of the three cruise ships bearing U.S. flags, Rudyanto
said.

"But how can we give a tour of a burnt out city?" he said.

Vista would offer instead other destinations, such as Manado
in North Sulawesi, if the cruise ships still wanted to stop in
Indonesia, he said.

Rudyanto said the cruise operators might choose to avoid
Indonesia altogether and take longer route instead. (das)