The Indonesian Tourism Dilemma – David Beirman’s view

Travel Mole has reported on the outrage Balinese Tourism Officials have expressed over Australian Government travel advisories and their disappointment that Australian tourism to Bali has been slower to recover than many of Bali’s other international source markets

This situation in reality though encompasses the far wider issue of Indonesia’s management of tourism recovery over the past few years, but let’s deal with the issues of government travel advisories first and the wider issue of Indonesian recovery marketing second.

The unpleasant but irrefutable facts are these.

Since and including the Bali bombing of October 12, 2002, a total of 93 Australian citizens (virtually all tourists) have died in terrorist related incidents in Indonesia, 92 of them in Bali.  Many more Australian tourists have died from terrorist related violence in Indonesia in four years than the rest of the world put together.

In 2004 the Australian Embassy was severely damaged by a bombing attack which killed 10 Indonesians and we have just commemorated the anniversary of the suicide bombings of October 2005 which killed over 20 people including four Australians.

Under the circumstances it would be utterly irresponsible for the Australian government to be other than cautious in its travel advisories.

Travel advisories by their very nature include the element of being extra-territorial security measures taken by the government to warn and protect its citizens from potential danger they may face when travelling abroad, consequently there is a tendency to err, if at all on the side of caution.

This does not necessarily mean the advisory is absolutely 100% correct but this principle must be understood as no Government can be seen to compromise through international pressure on matters as fundamental as the protection and defence of its citizens.

Consequently, Balinese and Indonesian expressions of indignation and demands for Australia to change its advisories are 100% counter-productive. 

Three years ago Kenya experienced a rash of negative travel advisories which were considerably less justifiable than those affecting Indonesia.  However, Kenya’s approach to resolving the problem should be a salutary lesson to the Indonesians.

In Kenya the tourism industry leadership and the Government security officials met with the Ambassadors of all countries who had issued negative travel advisories about Kenya and behind closed doors a series of measures were negotiated which satisfied both the Kenyans and the Governments of those countries that the travel advisories could be changed once implementation had been achieved. This worked and I know because I was both the facilitator and the arbitrator of that meeting in Nairobi in May 2003.

The Kenyans were just as upset as the Indonesians were about negative travel advisories but rather than grandstand, complain and threaten the countries which issued them, they adopted a diplomatic approach to the issue.

Neither side lost face and both the Kenyans and the respective source market countries came out as winners. This is called win-win negotiation.

The Balinese problem also exposes another major problem of Indonesian tourism recovery marketing and I preface my remarks by acknowledging that both the Balinese and the Indonesians generally are doing a lot of things right.

They have an excellent web site, their briefing of the media on issues ranging from natural disasters to terrorism and political problems is excellent, the destination of Bali is fantastic and they have implemented a wide range of measures to improve security and their media marketing is often brilliant.

There have been some promotions of Bali and other parts of Indonesia in Australia some of which have been highly successful and some of which have been exhibitions of embarrassing incompetence.

The fundamental problem Indonesia has in recovering its Australian market and no doubt some others key source markets is the glaringly obvious fact that there is no ongoing national tourism marketing presence in Australia, with destination marketing left to Garuda, Qantas and a gaggle of wholesalers who have a commercial interest in bringing Aussies back to Bali and Indonesia, but they get little practical support from either the Balinese tourism authorities or the Indonesian Government. 

Indonesia has failed to give any logical justification for the fact that there is no full time marketing presence in Australia, with the money the Indonesian government has spent on some of the elaborate promotional activities they have  conducted in Australia  recently including the despatching of conflicting delegations of VIP’s, would be far better spent having a full time Indonesian tourism office in Australia.

An acquaintance of mine who works in the Indonesian consulate in Sydney frequently expresses frustration over the inability of consular staff to deal with the large volume of tourism related questions for which they are unqualified, untrained an ill-equipped to handle.

The message is clear with everyone in the travel industry in both Indonesia and Australia wanting tourism to Indonesia generally and Bali specifically to recover.

However, rather than waste energy and hot air criticising the Australian Government the Indonesian tourism industry leadership and the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism should have a hard look at the way it approaches recovery marketing in key source markets such as Australia and its management of the travel advisory issue. 

David Beirman, Struan & Associates, Tourism Crisis and Recovery Specialists

eMail:[email protected]

[the above are the views of the author and not necessarily those of TravelMole or its Editors].