INDONESIA: One Year On, Bali Tries to Put the Pain Behind It

By Larry Jagan Reprint | | Print |

Larry Jagan

BALI, Indonesia, Oct 13 2003 (IPS) - In downtown Kuta, the scene of last year’s Bali bomb attacks, there are painful reminders everywhere of the tragic events of a year ago.

Along the sidewalk, opposite the Sari club – the main target of the Oct. 12 attacks – are candles, flowers, messages of condolence and pictures of the victims. Tourists and locals alike stop and pay their respects.

”It makes me pretty sad when I look at it,” says Gary from Sydney, an Australian tourist who lost three friends in the bombing. He visited Bali more than eight times before the bombing. ”Very sad, words can’t explain my feelings … but we’ll keep coming back to help the Balinese … it’s a beautiful place,” he adds.

”I’ve always wanted to see Bali,” says Mary, another Australian tourist from Perth standing by the makeshift memorial. ”We’ve just arrived – a last minute decision; the bombing certainly didn’t put us off, definitely, and it didn’t put us off travelling around Indonesia,” she adds.

Across the road where the nightclub once stood, a new permanent memorial is being built.

”The Balinese style design represents the humanity of the past and is meant to be a permanent a reminder of the Bali bomb,” its designer Wayan Guugmuda says in an interview.

Inside the there will be a foundation, and visitors will be encouraged to remember the past and wish for peaceful and prosperous future.

Many new buildings are going up along Jalan Legian – one of Kuta’s main commercial streets – where the blast took place. A new small complex with a Internet cafée, beauty salon and restaurant upstairs is being built directly opposite the former Sari Club.

”Business is beginning to pick up,” says its owner Mohammad. ”We hope now the tourists will return to Bali and business will begin to boom again.”

In the months following the bomb, business seemed to evaporate overnight. The small stallholders and hawkers in the maze of alleys linking the shopping complexes and the beachfront disappeared, as the number of tourists coming to Bali fell drastically.

More than four out of five households on this resort island depend on tourism for their livelihood. So for the Balinese, the bomb was more than a humanitarian tragedy, it was also an economic disaster.

But there are encouraging signs of recovery. Tourists are beginning to return to Bali.

The regional travel organisation figures for visitors to Bali for the first half of 2003 show a 20 percent fall over last year. But in the past two months, the number seems to be picking up.

Surfers and backpackers are returning to Kuta. Bali’s idyllic images of sun, sand and surf with abundant food, drink and entertainment are attracting foreign tourists back to the island’s resorts.

”We are having our busiest time now since the bomb,” says Arif, one of the managers of the Bali Tropik Resort and Spa in Nusa Dua district. ”We are running at around sixty percent occupancy,” he adds.

That seems to be the case with most of the hotels in Bali. But senior executives at this upmarket end of Bali’s hotel industry believe that more needs to be done to bring the visitors back to the island.

”We had many initiatives, but we only began marketing them earlier this year to allow people to get through the pain of what had happened,” says Michael Kottray, the general manager of Sheraton Nusa Indah resort.

The Indonesian government has also been pro-active in trying to revive the Bali’s flagging tourist industry.

They have used the opportunity to showcase the island and counteract international concerns about security by holding major events on the island. Asian and European foreign ministers met here in July. Earlier this month, Bali played host to the leaders attending the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.

”Large events – government and corporate – are helping keep the industry going, but things are still not at the levels they used to be,” says Kottray.

Prices have been lowered to improve competition and the government has conducted strong advertising campaigns, including the Bali Tourism initiative Light of Hope recovery campaign.

The local tourist industry has also been active in promoting Indonesian travel to Bali. Many hotels and the airlines have been offering great short-vacation package deals of up to a week. As a result there are many more Indonesians, especially from Jakarta, now visiting Bali.

But travel industry executives are concerned that more needs to be done to re-invigorate the island’s tourist industry. ”It’s time to be innovative,” says John Koldowski, the head of the Pacific-Asia Travel association (PATA). ”The island of the gods could take advantage of the new trend of ‘cultural tourism’, with locals recreating the Balinese lifestyle.”

Underneath the widespread concern among the island’s inhabitants over Bali’s economic future, there is still a general worry about security and stability.

Many Balinese are suffering from a form of post-traumatic stress according to medical specialists on the island. A survey conducted in March among the 2,000 people living within a kilometre of the bomb blast found that 30 percent suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Today, a year after the bombing, there are more and more cases of post-traumatic stress disorder being discovered.

”We are still finding people suffering from a delayed reaction,” says Dr Denny Thong, a consultant psychiatrist who is working with an international group to help the locals overcome the psychological effects of last year’s tragedy.

Indeed, the Balinese are trying to put the events of a year ago behind them. ”After the cremation ceremony,” says Bali Governor Dewi Beratha, ”the Balinese try to forget the sadness and stand up for a better future.”