"Looking at the number of tourist visits to Bali which is recorded at between 5,000 and 8,000 this month, we can say there has been no decrease compared to the previous month," said Bali Province Tourism Office chief Ida Bagus Kade Subhiksu in Denpasar on Tuesday.
Subhiksu added that the report by Time magazine would actually not affect the number of tourist visits to Bali as long as all related institutions take action in cleaning up the garbage scattered at some locations on Kuta Beach.
Bali will remain the Island of Paradise should all the related institutions have the awareness to keep Bali clean, he said.
On the possibility that garbage problems may impact on the image of Bali tourism, Subhiksu called on all elements of the government, public, the media and business circle to sit together and come to a common understanding that Bali is the primary icon of domestic and international tourism of the country.
"We don`t blame the Time journalist who had written his article (on Bali) that way because it might have been the fact when he came to see Kuta beach there was a lot of garbage at the place," said Subhiksu.
Subhiksu said there was a foreign lady who had also written about Bali who visited Kuta in July last year and reported Kuta as a clean destination because there was no garbage at the time.
"Garbage usually floods into Kuta in the time of Monsoon seasons around the month of March every year," Subhiksu said.
On the accusation that garbage at Kuta as garbage sent from Banyuwangi across the sea from East Java, or any other places in Indonesia, Subhiksi did not take it as a problem that the garbage might have come from any place as he admitted that Bali itself has a lot of garbage.
"Even if the garbage had indeed been the waste carried over (the sea) from the other provinces, I can only hope that our Governor would have talked with those other regions on how to solve the problem," he said.
What is more important, he said, is the concrete action from the Balinese people in maintaining the cleanliness of the place, both seen from the perspective of the short- and long-term efforts.
"If the efforts have been taken consistently, Bali tourism would never be affected by the problem of garbage," he said.(*)
KR-VFT/HAJM/B003
Editor: Jafar M Sidik
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
