Douglas became aware of the series of earthquakes that struck Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, six months ago when he decided to go to the island during his six-week holiday. As a local of California in the United States, the 30-year-old electronic sales clerk isn’t any stranger to tremors.
“In terms of worry of not trying to return here, where we live, we’ve earthquakes regularly. However, we’ve got unique constructing structures so while an earthquake happens, much less damage is performed,” Douglas, who did not want to show his full name, stated even as sitting via the seaside on Gili Trawangan, a small island off the coast of Lombok.
Gili Trawangan, a popular tourist spot alongside its neighboring islands of Gili Meno and Gili Air, was devastated after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that hit Lombok on Aug. Five. The general public and the buildings on the island were destroyed.
When The Jakarta Post visited the island recently, production employees were busy rebuilding the inns. Small piles of particles left from the earthquake were still visible in the corners of the island. The island was regarded as vacant. Beachside cafes, bicycle rentals, and scuba diving spots have often been abandoned as their owners looked around, hoping to draw the few passersby.
“We were going across the Gilis for nearly a month now […] We were inside the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam, but this has been the nicest area,” Douglas, who turned into traveling with his 30-yr-antique girlfriend Rebecca, stated. “I assume the island is also seeking to alternate its image from simply reasonably-priced partying [into] greater about playing nature.”
Rebecca agreed with Douglas, announcing they were determined to spend plenty of time inside the Gilis as it had become safe for them as foreigners to travel there.
“This place is much nicer than everywhere else [similar we have visited],” Rebecca added. “We are already speaking to me about coming back here, and we’re not 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 same period the year before.
The ministry’s facts indicate that before the earthquake, up to 10,000 foreign vacationers arrived at Lombok Praya International Airport each month. After the earthquake, the number fell to 3,000.
According to Emanuel Prasodjo, a well-known supervisor for Aston Sunset Beach in Gili Trawangan, the average range of vacationers arriving on the island every day before the earthquake should reach 3,000 people. Now, that wide variety is around 900.
“The foreign travelers who come here say they may be now not afraid of earthquakes as tons as they’re of terrorists, but we assume home tourists are nevertheless worried via the catastrophe,” said Emanuel.
The Post determined that there were nearly no local tourists in Gili Trawangan and other famous destinations such as Mandalika Beach, Merese Hill, and Seger Hill Beach. The Tourism Ministry showed that the variety of domestic travelers touring Lombok had dropped drastically, even though it has not launched authentic information.
Emanuel recalled that tourism officials on Gili Trawangan started evacuating guests from the island after they received a tsunami warning via text message from the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) in August. No sirens or emergency bells had been heard beforehand, he stated.
“Even now, months after the earthquakes, we have not acquired any disaster mitigation schooling from the principal government,” he introduced. “Understandably, that [August’s earthquake] turned into the enormous catastrophe we’ve ever had here, but we’ve got many smaller earthquakes in previous years.”
By February, around 50 percent of the five hundred inns and eating places in Gili Trawangan had lower back to regular operations.
Tourism Ministry assistant for international advertising and marketing Nia Niscaya said the Lombok earthquake, in conjunction with the earthquake and tsunami in Central Sulawesi in September and the Lion Air crash in October greatly affected Indonesia’s traveler numbers in 2018.
On top of that, Indonesia also saw the eruptions of Mount Anak Krakatau within the Sunda Strait, Mount Agung in Bali, and the Banten tsunami in the same year.
“We had a goal to draw 17 million worldwide tourists a final year; however, simplest carried out 15.8 million,” Nia stated at a press convention. “This 12 months, but we believe we can attract 20 million travelers, as hard as that may be to reach.”
The authorities, she said, had rolled out many measures to sell Lombok and other destinations in Indonesia following the series of disasters, including imparting all-in-one traveler applications, maximizing promotion in Indonesia’s tourism hubs worldwide, and encouraging tourists from neighboring international locations to go to Indonesia.
“People in neighboring countries have geographical and cultural proximity to us, so it’s far simpler for us to reach out to them, and it’s miles cheaper for them to go to our locations,” Nia introduced.
