Gary LaMoshi, Denpasar – 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.]