RI ask travelers to help heal Bali's tourism industry
RI ask travelers to help heal Bali's tourism industry
Alexa Olesen, Associated Press, Singapore
Indonesia's top tourism officials on Thursday pleaded with international travelers to come back to its resort island of Bali, where a bomb attack Saturday on a nightclub killed nearly 200 people, many of them young tourists.
"We hope to tell all our friends around the world, around the globe: 'Please come to Bali, don't stop traveling, don't stop visiting Bali,"' said Anak Agung Gede Rai, a spokesman for the Bali Tourism Board, during a news conference in Singapore.
Since Saturday, many governments have warned their citizens against nonessential travel to Indonesia.
Officials fear the bomb attack may mean the death of Bali's vital tourism industry, which supports 99 percent the island's 3.2 million people, Rai said.
About 1.83 million people visited Bali last year, Rai said, spending an average of US$150 per day.
Political and ethnic unrest have hurt Indonesia's reputation among tourists in recent years. Radical Islam has also been on the rise in parts of the country, which is the world's most populous Muslim nation.
Bali, however, had always been considered relatively safe - until the nightclub bombing that left at least 183 dead and hundreds more injured or missing.
Bali "is the soul of our tourism industry" and Indonesia's "crown jewel," said Setyanto Santosa, chairman of Indonesia's Culture and Tourism Board.
Santosa also implored tourists around the world to return to the island - but not yet.
He said Bali could not reasonably expect a recovery until the "actors behind the bombings" are found, the bodies of the dead are identified and the island emerges from its "sorrow and sadness."
A spiritual cleansing ceremony will be held at the bomb site on Oct. 21, the day of the next full moon, Rai said.
"This is how the Balinese react to violence," he said. "Through peace and prayer."
Rai and Santosa were in Singapore to receive a Time magazine reader's choice award honoring Bali as the "World's Favorite Holiday Resort 2002."