In answer to Gina and BaliJeff Bali about the situation here in Lovina.
Firstly regarding budget hotels being empty in Lovina, well they have been that way since the government introduced the new visa policy of 30 days and $25 US. This basically killed the pack backer trade off overnight and is very sad for all that type of accommodation throughout Indonesia. I guess the Indonesian government thought this type of market they didn’t need, not realizing that these out of way tourist places rely a lot on this trade and it is actually very helpful to the local economy, as the money spent by back packers goes directly into the local community not like the star rated hotels, where it is often paid for in the country of origin in a package form.
My hotel Rambutan opened in the 90s and we relied totally on back packers then and it was very good business which enabled us to build the place up and eventually changer into a more up market place. I still have budget rooms but their occupancy run at below 5%. Due to this visa policy
Regarding Jeoffs questions about the effect the last bomb attack has had on Lovina, well if I compare it to the first one a lot less and I gave some comparisons in my previous posting. One reason is Lovina’s tourism is mainly European and they are a little tougher in their attitude to the dangers perceived about Bali. Also on a personnel note I have noticed a lot more of my customers actually leaving out the south of the island totally and we are asked to pick them up at the airport and then drop them off there. Hotels like Bali Taman are still getting very good occupancy rates, due to their links with travel companies in Europe.
One important thing I have noticed throughout all these bad events starting with the Sept 11th attack, that there is an immediate knee jerk reaction, which seems to be almost forgotten in the New Year. With Sept 11th I only actually had one cancellation but had very few enquiries or bookings until the New Year and it was very dramatic after the New Year that things went back to normal very quickly. A similar thing happened with the first bomb in Bali in 2002 but then we had a 99% rate of cancellations but come the New Year things started to pick up quickly but then we had the Iraq war and worst of them all was SARS, which ironically didn’t infect anyone to my knowledge in Indonesia but the good old western press wanted to sell papers, so they exaggerated the whole thing, failing to mention that the SARS virus could live for only 30 seconds outside its host in a warm country like Indonesia. This bird flu scare mongering by the press seems to be going in the same direction, which will probably have a very bad effect on tourism.