Negative reports drive dent in Bali tourism mart

By Devi M. Asmarani

NUSA DUA (JP): Bali, Indonesia's most famous tourist destination, saw a 15.7 percent drop in the number of foreign tourist arrivals in the first half of this year to 489,877 visitors, effected by the country's negative image.

Tourism here may not have suffered the same level of adversity as the rest of the crisis-blown country but the drop has significantly cut the revenues of the island, which is often called the island of the gods.

The regional director of the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Luther Barrung, pointed at the increasing international media coverage on political and economic affairs as one factor that has contributed to the decline.

"The negative issues on Indonesia has badly affected the growth of foreign tourist arrivals here this year," Luther told reporters here.

Data from his office shows that foreign tourist arrivals rose by a mere 6.4 percent year-on-year to 88,579 people last January.

But as the regional crisis worsened and Indonesia's political and social tension heightened, arrivals declined.

Like the rest of the country, tourism hit rock-bottom in the aftermath of the May riots which hit Jakarta and several neighboring towns and which led to the resignation of president Soeharto.

Many countries issued travel advisory notes, discouraging their citizens to visit Indonesia. Some countries continue to discourage them.

As a consequence, foreign tourists to the island drastically dropped in May by nearly 29 percent to 6,326 visitors from those in the same month last year.

In June, which is usually the start of the peak season, the number of tourist arrivals in Bali fell by 35 percent to 67,437 compared to June 1997.

This dealt a significant blow to the island, base to 30,665 rooms belonging to 90 star-rated hotels and 1,283 non star-rated hotels.

This year, the office recorded a continuous drop in the average occupancy rate in Bali.

Luther said the average hotel occupancy rate in January fell to 51.27 percent compared to 57.45 percent in the same month last year.

By April the average slightly picked up to 62.60 percent, but was still lower than the figure in April 1997.

But the average rate is slowly picking up and the island expects another high season which will peak in August.

The vice president of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association, Feisol H. Hashim, said occupancy rates of four and five-rated hotels were currently about 50 percent in the Sanur area, 55 percent in Nusa Dua and 75 percent in the Kuta area.

The general manager of the Sheraton Nusa Indah hotel, Lothar R. Pehl, said the occupancy rate at his hotel was 7 percent to 8 percent in May, but now it had rebounded to 40 percent and 50 percent.

The culturally rich Bali has been evolving since the 1960s to cater to tourism, making its economy highly dependent on the sector.

A study by the tourism office shows that tourism contributes 42.2 percent of the province's gross domestic product.

Pehl expressed optimism that Bali would remain one of the main tourist destinations in Asia.

"We have people out there that think Indonesia is all dark and cloudy, but changes happen everywhere and usually bring positive results," he said.

"No country can guarantee total safety. What happens on a dark street in Jakarta is no different than in Germany," he said.

Bali's main markets are Japan, Australia, Britain, Germany and Taiwan.

The rupiah's 80 percent drop against the U.S. dollar since mid last year has attracted visitors from countries unaffected by the crisis.

However, several Asian countries such as Japan were also experiencing significant depreciation in the value of their currencies.

Several hoteliers admitted that Japanese visitors, which made up 240,245 people out of the total 2.15 million foreign tourists to Bali last year, had decreased this year.

An American researcher based in Tokyo, Paul Stares, who arrived here for a 10-day visit said the currency drop was a very attractive offer to eventually lure people to visit certain parts of Indonesia.

"I am very concerned about what else is happening in Indonesia, but I think Bali is stable," Stares, who arrived Friday with his wife and three-and-a-half-year-old son, told The Jakarta Post.