Indonesia’s tourism minister has urged businesses in Bali “not to be afraid” of discounting as the island seeks to recover from the impact of last month’s volcanic eruption.
Arief Yahya called on the hospitality industry in Bali to provide incentives for potential tourists.
“Do not be afraid to give discounts, it is better to have less profit than more losses from having not enough revenue,” he said during a meeting with the Bali Tourism Hospitality Task Force in Denpasar this week.
The meeting evaluated the responses to the Mount Agung eruption in November as well as discussed the possible recovery phase to revitalise tourism to the island.
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman of the country’s National Disaster Management Agency, added that Bali was safe to visit outside an exclusion zone around the volcano and the airport is operating as normal
Co-ordinating minister for maritime affairs Luhut Pandjaitan said: “The alert status of Mount Agung is still at level four, but only for the radius of 10 kilometres from the summit. The rest of Bali is still normal.
“Based on the advice from the Agency for Meteorology Climatology and Geophysics, the winds will blow towards the east of Bali. Thus, should an eruption occurs, the ash will not disrupt aviation activities in Bali airport.”
Simulations of potential hot ash cloud, lava flows and dispersion of volcanic ash have been carried out over a number of scenarios.
This showed that tourism attractions located outside the 10 kilometre exclusion zone as secure and safe, according to Luhut.
“Safety is our main concern. We have an 8-10 kilometre exclusion zone around Mt Agung. Residents have been moved off the mountain and all activity has been reduced,” he said.
He urged potential tourists to not cancel their travel plans to Bali.
As long as travellers visit tourism attractions outside the 10 kilometre exclusion zone, their trips are safe.
“Please inform everyone to still go on vacation to Bali, it’s not necessary to postpone or cancel,” Luhut added.