By Jakarta, Indonesia. May 5, 2005 - 12:04PM. Taken from The Age.
Death sentences, drug mules, child abuse, chaotic court scenes - Bali has copped some dreadful media coverage in Australia, yet tourists are turning up in record numbers.
The piles of bulky surfboard bags and queues of travellers fronting customs at Bali's Ngurah Rai airport point to a seasonal visitor surge that is just getting under way as Indonesia's monsoon season retreats.
But in the wake of the Schapelle Corby drug smuggling trial and the arrest of the Bali nine for alleged heroin trafficking, nervous glances punctuate the long arrivals queues.
A new scanner is being installed beside old x-ray baggage machines.
"I just threw some drug traces through it and they picked it up just fine," an Australian technician installing the scanner tells a gaggle of excited Indonesian police and customs officials.
"We can try it again now with some other materials."
Drugs are on the minds of even the most innocent passengers at Ngurah Rai these days.
Since the arrest of accused marijuana trafficker Corby last year and the recent swoop on a gang of alleged Australian heroin smugglers, most know about Indonesia's death penalty for drugs.
"You have an Australian woman here in trouble, yes," says a Japanese surfer with spiked, punk hair as she waits to feed her board through the x-ray slot, just as Corby did moments before marijuana was allegedly found in her bag last October.
The Australian media blitz surrounding Corby and the Bali nine, as well as allegations of sexual assault on Australian children at a plush resort hotel, have worried some Balinese.
They fear another tourist exodus like the one that followed the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people including 88 Australians.
Some locals ask about reports of death threats against Indonesian diplomats in Australia, as well as pro-Corby petitions and websites.
Most of all they are worried about a tourist boycott.
A Tasmanian travel agent recently threatened to stop selling Bali holiday packages if Corby is convicted by the Denpasar District Court.
But I Gede Witana, an adviser to the Bali government and professor of tourism at Udayana University, believes fears of a backlash are exaggerated.
"It seems Australians are immune to issues about Bali," he says.
"There's something special and unique in Bali, especially for Australian tourists.
"If you look at Corby's drug case, it hasn't affected tourism at all."
Tourist numbers are back to even higher levels than before the Bali bombing, and a large component of that figure continues to come from Australia, Witana says.
"Before the bombing we had 1.42 million tourists, but in 2004 we had 1.46 million, and Australian tourists are 27 per cent of those," he says.
But amid the deluge of negative press, Australians are taking extra precautions.
"Every aperture of our luggage has a padlock on it, which we wouldn't have done before," says Ken Postill, of Sydney, who brought his wife Joanne and two young children to Bali for a holiday.
The Postills, who arrived two days after the Bali nine were arrested, say they had received emails asking them to support Corby by signing a petition.
They were also urged to boycott Bali.
"Everyone said 'don't go, don't go'," Joanne says.
"But we wanted to bring the kids here as an eye-opener, to give them a bit of a culture shock."
Perth resident Quentin Burr, who brought his 15-year-old daughter on a 12-day holiday to Bali, believes Corby has been unfairly treated.
But he says he never considered boycotting the Indonesian island.
"I think Schapelle got a bum deal, police didn't even fingerprint the bag," he says while strolling along Kuta beach.
"But the Balinese need us, they're still suffering a bit after the bombing, so we just made sure we padlocked our luggage and took extra precautions."
Joanne Postill says her family decided against using hotel childcare in the wake of the sexual abuse allegations.
"I couldn't leave the kids to go out at night. I'm not prepared to take that risk," she says.
But hotel and tour operators say it is business as usual.
"Australian bookings are still strong," says Chrissie Lincoln of The Villas in trendy Seminyak.
"We haven't even had any inquiries about these issues."
- AAP
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