Number Of Japanese Tourists To Bali Down After Tsunami

Denpasar (Antara Bali) - Head of the Bali Tourism Agency  Ida Bagus Kade Subhiksu said the number of Japanese coming to Bali in the wake of the devastating quake and subsequent deadly tsunami in Japan has lowered considerably.

"The drop was apparent from the cancellation of more than 1,000 hotel room reservations," he said here Wednesday.

After attending a seminar and workshop on the development of tourist villages and areas, he said many other hotels besides those in Nusa Dua, Kuta and Sanur, may also cancelled their hotel room reservations of Japanese tourists.

He said that despite the highest drop in the number of tourists after Australians, he will continue promoting tourism both by way of the Internet and overseas promotion.

"We will continue promoting like attending the world's biggest tourist exhibition, the International Tourism Bourse (ITB) in  Berlin, and the tourism exhibition and bourse JATA World Travel Fair," he said.

He said the effort is a means of the promotion of Indonesian tourism in Bali particularly, because the number of German and Japanese tourists to the island paradise (Bali) had been increasing.

On a different occasion, chairman of Bali's Association of Tourist Travel (Asita) Al Purwa said he had yet to receive more reports from travel offices on the cancellations.

He said that Asita  in Bali has 345 hotels, including 50 serving Japan-Bali travel.

In this context, Al Purwa suggested the tourist travel bureaus which had been relying on the Japanese market, to diversify their market.   

The number of Japanese tourists to Bali is second to the number of Australian tourists.  In 2010, 305,857 Japanese tourists accounted for the total number of 2.5 million foreign tourists.(*)