RI ask Australia to lift travel warnings

RI ask Australia to lift travel warnings

Associated Press, Sydney, Australia

Australia should stop advising its citizens against traveling to Indonesia or risk "misunderstandings" between the two neighboring nations, the Indonesian tourism minister said on Monday.

I Gde Ardika, who is in Australia to promote Indonesia's tourist destinations, said he plans to ask Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer to lift the travel warning when they meet on Tuesday.

Ardika said it was vital that Australians begin visiting Indonesia again, to promote understanding and tolerance between the two neighbors - which have had a fractious relationship in recent years.

The tough warnings came in the wake of the Oct. 12, 2002, bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali that killed 192 people, including 88 Australians. Bali is only a four-hour plane ride from the western Australian city of Perth, and had been a popular destination for Australian tourists.

In January this year, Australian tourists, who normally make the most of Bali's surf and sun, came fourth with 4,963 arrivals, down from second place during the same month last year.

Japanese tourists led the pack to Bali with 10,290 arrivals, followed by Taiwanese at second place with 8,902 visitors and Singapore third with 5,115 visitors.

According to the Indonesia's Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the terrorist attacks had dealt a severe blow to the tourist sector as the number of foreign tourist arrivals fell by 2.33 percent in 2002 to 5.03 million compared to 5.15 million in 2001.

Since 1998, overall average per year, Australian tourists came third with around 550,000 arrivals after Singapore with 1.3 million and Japan with 690,000 arrivals.

The warnings enraged many Asian leaders, who claimed they did not reflect the real situation in their countries and hurt them economically.

Australia also advised its citizens to defer all nonessential travel to Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. Most of the advisories remain in force, although some have been softened.

"We quite understand that it is the duty of a government to advise its citizens to be careful in traveling," Ardika told reporters on Monday.

"(But) if people are not traveling because of this advisory it means people ... are not visiting and not seeing each other, and that could create misunderstandings between people."

He warned, without elaborating, that if such "misunderstandings" happen "that means the terrorists won."

But Downer said on Monday that there would be allegations leveled at the government whatever it did on the subject.

"We get allegations that our travel advisories are excessive," Downer said. "And then we get accused of not taking travel advisories seriously enough and the ratings of our travel advisories are too low when it comes to something like the Bali bombing."

Ardika would not say outright that Bali was safe following the blasts. But he did say arrests of several suspects and an increased police presence had improved security.

"In terms of physical change the beach is still there, the hotels are still there, the people are still there with their friendly smiles," he said. "What is actually lost is the perception of safety."