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Why
Tourists Stay Away
From the Perspective
of a Long Term Expat
‘How
do we get there? Bali isn’t on the
map any more.’ These were the comments
of my son when I discussed him bringing
his family over to visit us in Bali for
a holiday. I have lived over 17 years in
Indonesia. I am based in Jakarta but for
the past ten years have been spending part
of each month in Bali.
I work as a financial adviser primarily
to the expatriate community. Among my clients
are managers of many of the leading hotels
in Bali so I have a pretty good feel for
what is happening in the tourist industry.
I have seen Bali during the boom years of
the 90’s, through the collapse during
the Asian financial meltdown in 1997, the
Jakarta riots of 1998 and subsequent turmoil,
the first Bali bombing, SARS and the strong
recovery in 2005 up to the moment of the
second Bali bombing.
Bali
is no longer offered in the UK as a destination
Twice a year I make a family visit to the
United Kingdom. On my latest trip over Christmas
and the New Year I spotted one obvious reason
why many tourists are not returning to Bali.
I do not believe it is because people are
afraid to come; it is that the marketing
has come to a standstill and people are
no longer offered the opportunity to come.
During the weeks after Christmas the British
public is traditionally bombarded with advertisements
for holidays and bargain flights to all
corners of the globe. I scoured the travel
pages of the Sunday newspapers. Pages
of advertisements offered holidays and cheap
flights to every popular destination under
the sun – with the exception of Bali.
In previous years Bali had always figured
prominently in all the advertisements. Not
any more.
Travel
warnings the problem?
The travel warnings are almost certainly
the reason. The general public may not be
aware of them but the insurance industry
certainly is. While the warning is in force
operators will have difficulty offering
travel insurance. Hence Bali is removed
from their lists. We may ask why the warnings
are in place for Bali whilst there are no
such warnings for other targets of terrorist
bombings such as London or Madrid. The reason
could lie in the fact that the British Foreign
Office, as well as other governments including
Australia, came under severe criticism for
stating prior to the first bombing that
Bali was safe. Civil servants and politicians
do not want their career prospects jeopardized
by repeating that mistake so they take the
safe way out and issue a warning on what
could be a permanent basis.
How
can the problem be tackled?
If indeed it is the travel warnings that
are keeping tourists away and not the concerns
of the tourists themselves, then if I were
in the tourist industry this would be the
focus of all my efforts. I do not believe
that the people themselves want to stay
away. Of course there is always a risk of
further incidents but most westerners are
now seasoned travelers and can put the risk
of terrorism into perspective together with
other risks of travel such as accidents,
illnesses, robberies, earthquakes, tsunamis
etc. The real reason behind the travel warnings
is that civil servants and politicians are
more concerned about being criticized if
something goes wrong than they are about
the interests of the tourist industry and
the thousands of people whose livelihoods
depend on it. As I see it, the only way
forward for the industry is to get these
warnings lifted. Perhaps they could be replaced
with some kind of advisory that would apply
to most holiday destinations so that even
the least worldly wise travelers would be
made aware of the risks of travel. Such
an advisory would probably be quite acceptable
to insurers. Unless the travel warnings
are lifted I believe most other efforts
to bring the tourists back will be wasted.
Tourist industry, it is up to you to put
pressure in the right places to put Bali
back on the map! (BTN/Colin Bloodworth,
Jakarta)
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