Rumbling volcano cuts down number of Bali tourists
Imran Ameer booked tickets to spend 10 days on the beaches of Lombok, near Bali, with his pregnant wife and 17-month-old daughter. Then Mount Agung in eastern Bali erupted, forcing the 28-year-old from Melbourne to scrap that plan.
He’s not alone. With a possibility of the volcano erupting again any time, scores of hotel rooms and flights to Bali have been left empty into the year end, casting doubt on one of the resort-island’s busiest seasons.
Five numbers show what’s at stake:
> 25% : About 25% of hotel rooms in Bali are currently occupied, compared with as much as 80% in December last year, according to Tjok Oka Artha Ardhana Sukawati, chairman of Bali’s association of hotels and restaurants.
The island’s tourism industry loses about 250 billion rupiah (RM73.3mil) a day as a result of hotel room and other cancellations, Sukawati said.
> 70: Tourism in Bali – named the world’s top travel destination by TripAdvisor Inc this year – directly
and indirectly accounts for about 70% of the island’s income, according to the tourism board.
> 4.5: Tourism is important not just for Bali but also for Indonesia’s economy. The nation’s tourism revenue – much of which is generated on the resort island – accounted for 4.5% of gross domestic product last year, figures from the Tourism Ministry show.
The ministry says it’s maintaining its projections for the contribution to rise to 5.5% this year and 6.5% in 2018.
> 300: Indonesian flag carrier PT Garuda Indonesia cancelled more than 300 flights because of closures at Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport and the Lombok International Airport after the volcanic eruptions. Services to Bali
account for 30% of the airline’s daily total.
> 1 million: Garuda lost about $1mil (RM4mil) a day when the airports were shut, according to estimates by Shukor Yusof, founder of Endau Analytics, an aviation consulting firm. Shukor estimated that PT Lion Mentari Airlines, Indonesia’s biggest airline, lost about US$500,000 (RM2mil) a day. — Bloomberg