UBUD, Bali - On opening day of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival last week,
the list of sold-out events was twice as long as the "tickets available" side.
Now in its fifth year, the festival is attracting hundreds of guests from
dozens of countries to this village in the hills of Bali. This year, more than
ever, they're not alone.
The festival was founded five years ago to help Bali recover from the October
2002 bombings that killed 202 people, mainly foreign tourists including 88
Australians, at a pair of nightclubs. "We did set up the festival to boost the
economy and lift people's spirits," said festival founder and director Janet de
Neefe, who moved to Bali from Australia.
With far more accuracy than President George W Bush, de Neefe
can declare her mission accomplished. Her adopted home of 3.2 million is
heading toward a second straight year of record arrivals, vital for the
estimated three-quarters of Bali's households who rely at least in part on
tourism for their livelihood. The lush island at the eastern edge of Asia -
beyond it lies the Wallace Line and Oceania - is also the backbone of
Indonesia's US$5.3 billion national tourism industry, the nation's leading
non-energy foreign exchange earner.
"But it goes beyond the economy," de Neefe said. "The festival has a greater
purpose." On the artsy side it includes introducing Indonesian literature to
global audiences and showcasing Bali's Hindu culture within a country that has
the world's biggest Muslim population.
Selling tradition
That culture identifies Bali as the island of 1,000 temples and helps stimulate
recovery. "Tradition has survived tourism development here," Chinese writer
Lijia Zhang, attending her first Ubud festival, observed. "China is facing the
same issues. China is destroying tradition as it develops." That may be one
reason mainland China has become one of the top five sources for visitors to
Bali, up nearly 60% from a year ago, according to BaliDiscovery.com, a tourism
information and booking website.
If visitors want more culture, there's the Balinale International Film Festival
opening this week. For action, participants in the inaugural Asian Beach Games,
sanctioned by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), are kicking up sand across the
island with hundreds of competitors from 45 nations and territories. The games,
which could be setting world records for poor organization and visibility, have
squeezed $32 million from the Indonesian government's budget to plump the egos
of the Gulf sheiks that run OCA. But in these good times on the easy-going
island, who cares?
It's an indicator of Asia's growing wealth and degree of economic decoupling
from the West that Bali has boomed during two bad years in the US economy. As
the contagion from the financial crisis in the West spreads, Bali may yet
suffer. It may also benefit, or limit the damage, due to the island's
reputation as providing good value at the luxury end of the market and a vast
range of options below. But Bali's busts, booms and international accolades,
such as World Best Island awards from Travel & Leisure magazine, are mainly
products of what happens on the island, not outside.
After a record 1,417,849 foreign tourist arrivals to Bali in 2000, the
September 11 attacks pushed down the 2001 total, and the October 2002 bombings
further depressed the figures that year and beyond. In 2003, arrivals were
993,029, down 30% from the previous normal year. Then, high-end hotels reported
vacancy rates of 70% or more. Based on the experience of other terrorism resort
targets such as Luxor in Egypt, experts predicted it would be a decade before
Bali rebounded.
That was before a second wave of attacks by suicide bombers in 2005 that killed
20 people at a pair of popular dining spots, including the Jimbaran Bay
beachfront. "Bali Bomb II really put the dent in things," long-term expatriate
resident Cody Shwaiko said. "The people who started coming as surfers came back
with their families, and everyone went to Jimbaran. More people could imagine
being there than at a nightclub." The 2005 bombings also marked Bali as a
target: anything can happen once anywhere; twice is no accident.
But last year tourist arrivals rebounded to a record 1,664,854. This year, the
arrival figure for each of the first eight months has topped the previous
record for that month. Overall arrivals are 20.5% ahead of last year, putting
the island on pace for just over 2 million arrivals.
The 2002 attacks cratered Bali's usual markets of Japan, Australia and Europe,
so it turned to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Or perhaps
more accurately, ASEAN turned to it, with Singapore Airlines offering a variety
of packages while Western airlines were canceling flights, and Asia's
burgeoning bargain airlines found landing slots in Bali.
Aside from international tourists, Indonesians flocked to Bali in unprecedented
numbers after the first bombings and haven't stopped. Then-president Megawati
Sukarnoputri, whose grandmother is Balinese, even rearranged the national
holiday calendar to create more long weekends to visit Bali. Hotels were
reportedly fully booked during this month's Idul Fitri holiday, marking the end
of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Midas touched
"Bali is going through a golden patch," Bali Hotels Association chairman and
Conrad Bali general manager Michael Burchett said. "We are benefiting from a
lot of hard work over the past two years to establish good security standards,
sustainable environmental practices, and so on.
"There is a long way to go, but Bali has built its credibility in international
markets. More flights, the challenges that competitor destinations are having,
and, all up, Bali is the preferred destination of a broad market base."
Reestablishing that credibility began with a turnaround in Indonesian domestic
attitudes after the 2005 bombings. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono compelled
previously reticent religious leaders to condemn the suicide attacks, and
public opinion came along. The situation bears watching, with the government's
plan to execute three bombers condemned for the first Bali attack. Indonesia's
Islamic radicals have remained active, but they've directed their venom at
fellow citizens, including attacks on Muslim splinter sects and advocates of
pluralism.
The international community has also helped, sometimes in loopy ways. The
United Nations Climate Change Conference last December stamped an international
seal of approval on travel to Bali. The US, which had maintained a travel
warning for Bali since 2002, lifted it in May. Australia made a bigger splash
at the climate conference, with newly elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
accepting the Kyoto Protocol before attending the conference as part of his
first overseas trip in office.
"Its part of the normalization of Indonesia," Adrian Vickers, a professor of
Southeast Asian studies at the University of Sydney, said. "Its image has
improved a lot. Terrorism is not the defining aspect it was before."
Vickers finds it "odd" that the Australian government hasn't lifted its travel
advisory for Bali. It may be because of the flack John Howard's government took
for failing to warning Australians about the 2002 bomb. Or it may be part of
the good cop, bad cop, diplomacy Australia habitually practices with its giant
neighbor.
It hardly seems to matter. This year's surge of visitors is largely due to
Australians returning after being put off last year less by the bombings than
by a series of high-profile drug busts straining what had been traditionally
close ties. Australians have long been the number two visitors to Bali behind
Japan. The nearly 70,000 more Australians arriving in Bali this year represent
a third of Bali's total gain in arrivals.
Next challenge
As good as things are now, Bali Hotel Association's Burchett warns of potential
trouble ahead. "November onwards is anyone's guess under current worldwide
market conditions. MICE [meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions] is
being significantly affected, especially in the financial meeting sector.
Last-minute individual travel may also be affected by the strengthening US
dollar, which has increased significantly against all currencies in a very
short period. However, it is unknown if this is sustainable. As Bali is priced
in US dollars, there will be a knock-on effect."
But sometimes the dice roll your way. Bali veteran Shwaiko participated in a
marine conservation project revitalizing coral around the Gili islands off
Lombok, an island east of Bali. The Gilis had a niche as a less-developed
alternative to Bali, fed by tourists already in Bali. But Lombok's visitor
numbers tumbled due to anti-Chinese riots years before the Bali bombs.
"Getting involved, I saw the potential of the destination," Shwaiko recalled,
"and I saw how difficult it was to get there." The best route, flying to
Lombok, then taking a taxi to the pier, then crossing by boat, required four
hours or more from Bali. "We saw a window of opportunity, identified a boat
[sitting idle in the Lombok-to-Gili harbor], retrofitted it, and commenced
operations on July 15 last year," he explained. Gili Cat makes the crossing
direct from Bali to Gili Trawangan, cutting travel time in half.
"The month we started, the European Union banned Indonesian airlines," Shwaiko
said. "That also meant that European travel insurance wasn't valid for flights
with those airlines, even for domestic flights in Indonesia. So we were very
lucky, as travel agents were scrambling for alternatives. We've been so
successful we've bought a second boat and lifted capacity five times in our
first year."
Former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen told America's story to the
world as a US diplomat and is author of Hong Kong On Air (www.hongkongonair.com),
a novel set during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal,
high finance and cheap lingerie.
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