Two years on, Bali revival defies
doomsayers By Gary LaMoshi
DENPASAR, Bali - On October 12, 2002, bombs
targeting nightclub revelers along Jalan Legian in the
heart of Bali's Kuta Beach resort killed 202 people,
mainly Western tourists. At the time, experts predicted
that Indonesia's US$5.4 billion tourism industry would
need a decade to recover.
Sure, Bali has gentle
tropical weather, a varied landscape of beaches,
volcanoes and verdant rice paddies, plus a unique
ancient Hindu culture that makes it the island of a
thousand temples. But after terrorists attacked visitors
at the pyramids of Luxor - also a good drawing card for
sightseers - it took 10 years for Egypt's tourism
numbers to recover. Experts said Bali, facing a host of
nearby competing destinations, would be lucky to match
that rebound.
Two years later, Bali tourism is
setting new records, with nearly 150,000 direct foreign
arrivals in July alone. "The volume of tourists
returning certainly has surprised the industry," Bali
Hotels Association chairman Robert Kelsall admits.
"Everyone is achieving above their expectations for
2004."
Dramatically defiant Bali's
recovery has defied expectations in many ways. For one,
the visitor mix behind the record arrival numbers has
changed dramatically. Security has improved, but even
new threats that have emerged over the past two years
haven't deterred visitors. Moreover, Bali hasn't changed
the character of its tourism, which wins acclaim as the
world's top island destination, despite post-bomb talk
of scaling back growth and giving Balinese a bigger say
in how their island is exploited. Instead, the Conrad
and Westin hotel brands have come to the island,
bringing hundreds of new rooms to fill and employees to
support.
The record rebound relies on regional
visitors coming to Bali to spend several days in place
of tourists from Europe or North America spending
several weeks. Japan retains its traditional spot as
Bali's top source of tourists, with Taiwan and South
Korea following this Japanese fashion, as they do so
many others.
The other major contributor to the
rebound is the most likely suspect, and also the biggest
surprise: Australia. Record numbers of Australians
streamed into Bali during July and August.
More
than the Western esthetes of the 1930s who admired
Bali's arts and culture, it was Australian surfers who
put the island on the tourism map. Bali holds the same
place in Australian travel culture as Florida or the
Caribbean in the eastern US and the Spanish or Greek
islands in Europe. An estimated one out of 10
Australians has visited Bali. "Australians see Bali as
their own back yard and have a close affinity for Bali,"
says Kelsall, an Australian who likely shares that
sentiment.
Australia's September
11 Kelsall is also general manager of the Bali
Dynasty Resort in Kuta, located not far from the site of
the October 12, 2002, attack by Indonesians that cost
the lives of 88 Australian tourists and has become part
of the political culture the way September 11, 2001, has
become ingrained among Americans. Even though the
bombings took place in a foreign country, Kuta is
physically closer to the Australian cities of Darwin or
Perth than New York or Washington is to Los Angeles or
Denver.
Since the Bali bombs, Indonesia has been
the site of two further terrorist attacks against
Western targets, most recently last month's bombing at
the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. Yet Australians seem
undeterred from visiting. "There has been very little
from the Jakarta bomb and next to no cancellations,"
Kelsall reports. "The travel warnings are regarded by
Australians as political, and they feel they could be at
risk in Australia just as much as in Bali."
Those Australian government warnings urge
avoiding non-essential travel to Indonesia. But the
government concedes that attending Tuesday's dedication
ceremony of the new Kuta memorial, a blackstone wall
engraved in gold with the 202 names of those killed, may
be essential travel to some. Local officials are
preparing for hundreds of survivors plus family and
friends of victims to attend the dedication.
Since the bombings, police, the hospitality
industry and the Balinese community have all taken steps
to improve security. Cracking the bombing case helped
restore confidence in the police. They've become a much
more visible and welcome presence, overcoming their poor
reputation as bribe-hungry parasites.
Immediately after the 2002 blasts, hotels
instituted gate checks, searching vehicles with mirrors
and other devices. Vigilance has tended to wane over the
past two years, with revivals whenever a new blast
occurs or threat levels are raised. Local Balinese
councils, known as banjar, keep closer tabs on
outsiders living in their areas, while avoiding backlash
against Muslims that seemed likely in the bombing
aftermath. (Balinese are almost exclusively Hindu, while
other Indonesians, including many tourism-industry
workers, are overwhelmingly Muslim.)
Safer
than Jakarta "Security is a bright spot,"
observes the author of Jakarta Jive, Jeremy
Allan, who moved to Bali weeks after the bombings to
write a book about them. "I feel much safer here than in
Jakarta, which is one of the reasons I have not moved
back," he says.
Kelsall takes a different
approach. "I don't think security is the main issue any
longer," he says. "People have come to accept that
wherever they are in the world, there is a risk from
terrorism." That seems to be evident by several recent
events. The annual visit of the women's pro tennis tour
last month, just days after the Australian Embassy
attack, featured current Grand Slam champions Anastasia
Myskina and Svetlana Kuznetsova, a coup for a lower-rung
tournament. Top players come for Bali, not the prize
money and points on offer. This week, international
literati gather at the Ubud Writers and Readers
Festival, where the biggest security concern is
protecting elderly novelist Pramoedya Toer from
overenthusiastic admirers.
Nevertheless,
security issues are one reason behind the sluggish
recovery among Western visitors, Bali's biggest
spenders. Government travel warnings remain in place
from the United States, and Britain only recently
removed its advisory on Bali. Those warnings may not
scare individual tourists, but they can deter
conventions and business meetings as well as group tours
because of insurance issues.
But the biggest
government roadblocks to bringing back Western tourists
come from Indonesia. In February, the government revised
visa rules for tourists. Previously, visitors from all
but a handful of countries could get a 60-day visa upon
arrival in Indonesia for no fee. Now, none of Bali's
major sources of tourists enjoy that privilege. Lucky
visitors can pay $25 for a 30-day visa when they reach
Indonesia. But prospective tourists from countries
including the Netherlands, Sweden and Spain need to
obtain a visa in advance from an Indonesian embassy or
consulate, a distinct disincentive (see Visa changes darken Bali's happy holiday
recovery, January 17). In addition, Indonesia's
state airline Garuda has underscored the move away from
Europe by ending flight services to that continent.
Nevertheless, Bali's recovery seems to getting
along quite well without Europe and the Americas.
Improved security helps, but that's not the real reason.
Days after the Kuta bombs, renowned landscape architect
Made Widjaya, who came to Bali from Australia as Michael
White three decades ago and stayed, summed up why his
adopted island would bounce back: "Next to L-O-V-E, the
four most magical letters in the world are B-A-L-I."
Gary LaMoshi, a longtime editor of
investor rights advocate eRaider.com, has also
contributed to Slate and Salon.com. He has worked as a
broadcast producer and as a print writer and editor in
the United States and Asia. He moved to Hong Kong in
1995 and now splits his time between there and
Indonesia.
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DENPASAR, Bali - On October 12, 2002, bombs
targeting nightclub revelers along Jalan Legian in the
heart of Bali's Kuta Beach resort killed 202 people,
mainly Western tourists. At the time, experts predicted
that Indonesia's US$5.4 billion tourism industry would
need a decade to recover. 
