A waiter at one of the seafood restaurants strung along Bali's Jimbaran Bay gestures towards the other end of the beach, a sparsely populated stretch of sand where suicide bombs were detonated more than six months ago.
Asian and German tourists keep his restaurant ticking over, he says, but tourists from Australia, who have long flocked here to enjoy Bali's famed surf and stunning scenery, are staying away.
"Why don't they come back? We are going bankrupt," the waiter says.
PHOTO: AFP
Six months after three suicide bombers rocked the island, tourism numbers are still in the doldrums, with everyone from taxi drivers to hoteliers complaining about the slump hitting their wallets.
The attacks on Oct. 1 last year by Islamic extremists on bustling eateries at Jimbaran and the main beach strip of Kuta killed 20 bystanders. The bloodshed occurred just three years after the Hindu-majority island was shaken by even more devastating blasts which left 202 people dead, mostly Western holiday-makers.
In February, tourism arrivals were at 73,430, down 26.6 percent year-on-year, official data shows, while preliminary figures for last month are similarly disheartening.
"I'm worried about the num-bers," says Gde Nurjaya, chief of Bali's tourism authority.
Daily arrivals for the first quarter of last year averaged 3,900 per day amid bad publicity about Indonesia focused on the tsunami in Aceh, but this year only 2,800 per day have been trickling in, Nurjaya says.
And the number of days tourists' stay has dwindled from about 10 days before the Oct. 12, 2002, blasts to five or six days, he adds, as the market shifts from being dominated by Westerners to having a heavier Asian component.
"Some of my friends have quit driving taxis," says Ketut Prastiya, a taxi driver in Denpasar. "Not many tourists are around, so the money is not enough to support their families."
Some have gone home to their villages; others have found other work.
On a good day, Prastiya makes up to 40,000 rupiah (just under US$4) in profit, less than half of what he pulled in before the latest attacks. But on a bad day, he ends up owing the taxi company a portion of the 150,000 rupiah he pays to hire his car. He owes about 1 million rupiah.
Irwan Hidayat, the owner of a spa in Denpasar popular with tourists, says business is down by half compared with the same time a year ago.
"I have to change shifts, rearrange the schedule in order not to fire any of my staff," he says.
Even in the most popular tourist spots, such as beachside Kuta and Nusa Dua and the cultural town of Ubud, hotel occupancy hovers at around 30 percent, with the lucky hotels hitting 40 percent, hoteliers estimate.
Normally, rates would be up to 70 percent booked, they say.
"The level of occupancy is so low. It is so scary," says Ratna Radja Ully, secretary of the Bali branch of the Pacific Asia Travel Association. "I don't know why it is still difficult to get people to come to Bali."
Panicked hotels are offering sizeable discounts in a bid to lure the hordes.
"We got a 50 percent discount for a three-day meeting," says a pleased Herry Pramono, whose Jakarta-based office with a staff of more than 30 has just arranged a package at a four-star hotel in Kuta.
Kuta, the site of the first bombing, is particularly losing out to other areas as tourists seek out quieter alternatives -- perceived as less obvious targets -- such as Seminyak, where some hotels are filling half their rooms.
Happy Subiyanto, public relations manager of the Sofitel at Seminyak, says they are one of the few not offering discounts.
The slump "will kill others [but] we have the advantage of location," she says.
Some hoteliers say the government should be promoting Bali more aggressively.
"Let's talk about promoting the island as if Bali is a new destination and we have to introduce it widely and persistently," says Ayu Martiasih, from Maya Resort in Ubud.
Bali is lagging behind other nearby destinations such as Thailand and Malaysia, which are heavily pushing themselves, she complains.
"We have their promotions on our local television. Do we have ours on their televisions?" he asks.
Nurjaya from the tourism authority says officials have been doing promotional work, including a two-week trip taking in Berlin's major International Tourism Fair as well as stops in Perth and Guangzhou.
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