French travel companies suspend Indonesia packages for one month
French travel companies suspend Indonesia packages for one month
Agence France-Presse, Paris/Kuala Lumpur
Several of France's biggest travel agency networks on Tuesday suspended vacation packages to Indonesia for a month following the Bali bomb attacks that killed more than 180 people, an association of tour operators, Ceto, said.
The companies Voyageurs du Monde, Asia, Nouvelles Frontieres and Kuoni France are refusing bookings for Indonesia from Tuesday up to November 14 inclusive, Ceto said in a statement in Paris.
"Clients who have already booked for a departure between these dates will be offered other destinations. In case the alternative is not accepted, the clients will be reimbursed," the association said.
The head of Voyageurs du Monde, Jean-Franois Rial, confirmed the measure, but said other Asian destinations were unaffected.
Ceto said French tour operators have also started a monitoring service that may make similar decisions on other destinations "depending on how the situation develops".
One of France's biggest travel companies, Club Med, said it was not adhering to the policy, but was maintaining its own decision to cancel departures to Bali up to at least October 20.
"We are watching the situation very closely and we will change our policy if necessary," a company spokesman said.
Meanwhile, Malaysians have diverted their holidays to other regional destinations after the Bali bomb attack, an association of tour operators said Wednesday in Kuala Lumpur.
There was "no significant trend" of people canceling travel plans altogether, said Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) president Tunku Iskandar.
"There have been cancellations to Bali as to be expected and to a certain extent to other parts of Indonesia as well but not to other parts of the region," he told AFP.
"We are seeing people diverting their travel elsewhere, either domestically to Malaysia or to some other regional destinations such as Thailand and China."
But due to the forthcoming holiday season, travel agents were finding it hard to accommodate changes as most airlines have been fully booked, he said.
Tunku Iskandar said MATTA would hold an international travel fair this weekend and would seek to promote Bali, a popular destination for Malaysians especially during school holidays.
"We are trying to help our neighbor by getting travel agents to keep this negative trend as short as possible and see how we can package Bali again to be attractive," he said.
MATTA expects some 80,000 people to attend the three-day fair beginning Friday which offers bargains and promotional packages, he added.
Some tour operators have suspended travel to Bali after Saturday's incident which killed more than 180 people.
A spokeswoman for Kent Horizon Tours said there was "100 percent cancellation" by travelers under its vacation packages to Bali until mid-November.
Sime Holiday said all of its travelers have canceled plans to go to Bali and that interest in the resort island has plunged.
But a spokesman said travel to other popular destinations in the region such as Thailand's Phuket island was largely unaffected, contrary to belief that regional tourism would be devastated after the Bali blast.