Tourism revenues are a major and important earner for
many countries in South East Asia. Consider, then, the effect of government
travel warnings. We have already seen the deserted beaches in Bali, after
more than 190 people were killed on October 12th.
The US State Department recently issued a warning specifically
mentioning Malaysia as a country where US nationals could be at risk of
attack by the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist network, blamed for the
Bali bombing.
A Malaysian senior minister says: “Our forecast
of visitors is now between one to 1.1 million (tourists every month) compared
with 1.3 million before, which is 100,000 to 300,000 less that what we'd
hoped for,” …..”if not for the travel advisory and the
Bali bombing tragedy, the situation might have been better. Now everyone
thinks the entire (Southeast Asian) region is affected,” he said.