Travel agents look to calm after the storm

By I Wayan Juniarta

DENPASAR, Bali (JP): One month after Oct. 21 riots in Bali, a day now known as Ash Thursday, the island's tourism industry has yet to recover.

The riots have seriously affected tourism business on the island, including airlines, travel agents, hotels and other related-tourist industry.

Ash Thursday happened the day after Megawati Soekarnoputri failed to become Indonesia's fourth president, after losing to Abdurrahman Wahid, in the Oct. 20 presidential election, as expected by her fanatic followers.

In Bali, considered the most powerful camp of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, thousands of the party's members and supporters started riots in a number of major areas in Denpasar, Singaraja, and Jembrana to express their anger, disappointment and agony.

Ash Thursday also destroyed the image of Bali as the safest tourist destination in Indonesia.

I GB Yudhara, chairman of the Indonesian Tours and Travel Agencies (ASITA) Bali chapter, said that the number of tourists coming to Bali has dropped between 40 percent and 50 percent after the riots.

According to Luther Barrung, head of Bali's tourism office, the number of Australian tourists also dropped to about 30 percent. Some star-rated hotels in Nusa Dua, Kuta and other tourist areas in Bali also received cancellations.

According to the office's data, the number of foreign tourists visiting Bali was only 104,607 in October l999, a 14 percent decrease from 120,607 tourists for the same period last year.

Yudhara, owner of PT Puri Astina Putra, said the company usually has 1,000 guests every month, but now it is only gets half that number.

Demi Indriyanti from Indonet Travel, added that there was a slight drop in the number of visitors. During normal periods, she said, the company's website receives about 7,000 hits from potential clients. After the riot, it dropped 30 percent.

"We also received cancellations of about 10 percent from our normal visitors, which are about 800 per month," said Demi.

"Travel agents in Bali are now working extremely hard to promote Bali in overseas countries," Yudhara said.

More than 50 ASITA members will depart for Japan to attend a meeting with the Japanese Travel Association.

"We will explain to the Japanese travel agents about the current conditions in Bali and other parts of Indonesia," Yudhara said.

Members of ASITA Bali will also hold joint-promotion programs in Australia in February and March next year.

Some travel agents have also made various efforts to draw visitors to Bali.

PT Bharata Tours, for instance, has been actively informing its clients and potential guests about the most recent situation in Bali.

The company's sales manager, Made Widhana, said, "We have complete personal data on our clients so we send them letters and other necessary information."

Bali travel agents also have to face other problems, especially during low seasons.

Dwi Yani, a tourism observer, said a discount war is one of the crucial problems faced by local travel agents.

Most travel agents offer very low priced tourism packages to clients in order to draw more tourists and to maintain their operations.

"This price cutting will actually hurt their businesses as well as the image of Bali as a cheap tourist destination," he said.

Yudhara said that a discount war was caused by two factors. First, the number of travel agents operating in Bali has been increasing sharply. Currently, there are 200 travel agents registered with ASITA and 100 more unregistered companies.

Second, these travel agents sell similar types of package tours, which concentrate only on conventional tourist sites such as Ubud, Kintamani and Bedugul.

"They can actually create more innovative packages, exploring new areas in the western and northern parts of the island," Yudhara said.

Widhana, from Bharata Tours, said his company still has normal and even higher priced packages compared to other travel agents.

"We offer good services, comfort and security. We don't want to cut prices to draw guests," Widhana said.

Another crucial problem ahead is the Year 2000 (Y2K) bug which is predicted to affect computer systems, especially airline and transportation facilities.

The provincial government of Bali has yet to give information on its readiness to face a possible Y2K attack on various tourism, information and transportation facilities in the changeover from 1999 to 2000.

Some big travel agents, like Indonet Travel, have made Y2K preparations, but the smaller ones seem to be unaware of the possible threats from millennium bugs.