(11/18/2001)
The traveling public's reluctance to fly following the terrorist attacks of September 11 and rumors of "sweeping" in Java and elsewhere in Indonesia, extracted a heavy toll on visitor arrivals nationwide in September.
Foreign arrivals measured at the 13 main gateways of Indonesia showed a drop of 3.69% when compared to arrivals for the previous month.
Meanwhile, Bali's September arrivals dropped 8.34% to 139,741 with the largest declines being recorded in Makassar (Ujung Pandang) and Manado which slid 46.72% and 25.28%, respectively.
While official figures are not yet available for October, estimates are that arrivals are down between 25 to 33% at Bali's Ngurah Rai airport.
Nation-wide tourist arrivals year-to-date totaled just over 3 million through the end of September. Original government projections for arrivals for the entire year of 2002 were set at 5.4 million - a figure now becoming increasingly unrealistic.
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