Douglas becomes aware of the series of earthquakes that struck Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, six months ago when he determined to visit the island throughout his six-week vacation. As a local of California within the United States, the 30-yr-vintage digital sales clerk isn’t any stranger to tremors.
“In terms of fear of no longer wanting to come back right here, in which we stay, we have earthquakes very regularly; however, we’ve specific constructing systems so while an earthquake takes place, less harm is accomplished,” Douglas, who did no longer desire to expose his complete name, stated while sitting by way of the beach on Gili Trawangan, a small island off the coast of Lombok.
Gili Trawangan, a popular tourist spot on the side of its neighboring islands of Gili Meno and Gili Air, was devastated after the 7.0-significance earthquake that hit Lombok on Aug. Five. The general public and the buildings on the island were destroyed.
When The Jakarta Post recently visited the island, production employees were busy rebuilding the hotels. Small piles of debris left from the earthquake were nevertheless seen in the corners of the island.
The island was regarded as vacant. Beachside cafes, bicycle rentals, and scuba diving spots were broadly speaking abandoned as their proprietors seemed around, hoping to draw the few passersby.
“We have been going across the Gilis for nearly a month now […] We had been in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam, but this has been the nicest region,” Douglas, who turned into traveling with his 30-year-antique girlfriend Rebecca, said. “I assume the island is likewise trying to change its image from simply cheap partying [into] more approximately enjoying nature.”
Rebecca agreed with Douglas, announcing they determined to spend quite a little time inside the Gilis because it became clear for them as foreigners to travel there.
“This location is a good deal nicer than everywhere else [similar we have visited],” Rebecca added. “We are already speaking to me about coming returned here, and we’re no longer even finished with this ride.”
The number of tourists in Lombok plummeted following the earthquake. The Tourism Ministry reported that between September and December 2018, the number dropped by a whopping sixty-six percent compared to the identical period the year before.
The ministry’s facts suggest that before the earthquake, up to 10,000 overseas travelers arrived at Lombok Praya International Airport every month. After the earthquake, the number fell to fewer than 10,000.
According to Emanuel Prasodjo, standard supervisor for Aston Sunset Beach in Gili Trawangan, the common range of vacationers arriving at the island each day before the earthquake should reach three 000 people. Now, that wide variety is around 900.
“The overseas travelers who come here say they may now not be frightened of earthquakes as much as they are of terrorists. However, we count on home travelers who are still apprehensive by using the catastrophe,” stated Emanuel.
The Post observed almost no local travelers in Gili Trawangan and other famous destinations, such as Beach, Merese Hill, and Seger Hill Beach.
The Tourism Ministry confirmed that the number of home travelers visiting Lombok had dropped notably, though it has not released the legit facts.
Emanuel recalled that tourism employees on Gili Trawangan began evacuating guests from the island when they obtained a tsunami caution through a textual content message from the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) last August. No siren or emergency bells had been heard beforehand, he stated.
“Even now, months after the earthquakes, we’ve not received any catastrophe mitigation schooling from the central authorities,” he introduced. “Understandably, that [August’s earthquake] became the most significant catastrophe ever. However, we have had many smaller earthquakes in preceding years.” By February, around 50 percent of the five hundred lodges and eating places on Gili Trawangan had returned to ordinary operations.
Tourism Ministry assistant for worldwide advertising Nia Niscaya said the Lombok earthquake, alongside the earthquake and tsunami in Central Sulawesi in September and the Lion Air crash in October,- had substantially affected Indonesia’s vacationer numbers in 2018.
On the pinnacle of that, Indonesia also saw the eruptions of Mount Anak Krakatau inside the Sunda Strait, Mount Agung in Bali, and the Banten tsunami in the same year.
“We had a target to draw 17 million global travelers in the final 12 months but only accomplished 15.8 million,” Nia stated at a press conference. “This year, but we believe we can entice 20 million vacationers, as tough as that can be to reach.”
She said the government had rolled out several measures to sell Lombok and different locations in Indonesia following the collection of failures, including supplying all-in-one tourist applications, maximizing advertising in Indonesia’s tourism hubs worldwide, and encouraging travelers from neighboring international locations to visit Indonesia.
“People in neighboring countries have geographical and cultural proximity to us, so it is a way less complicated for us to reach out to them, and it is inexpensive for them to go to our locations,” Nia said.
