Bali’s governor I Made Mangku Pastika has said he is jealous of Malaysia because of their success in attracting tourists to their country.

Bali is only one island in the whole of Indonesia, so 2 million visitors to Bali is a pretty good effort in my opinion. Malaysia had 22 million tourists in 2008. I think that Bali is now at a point where any more tourists visiting the island are going to have a negative impact on the island’s environment.

Some of the things I enjoy about traveling to Malaysia, compared with Indonesia are the free three month visas you get on arrival, buying duty-free alcohol in Lang Kawi and the pretty good public transport system they have.

My suggestions to improve tourism would include getting rid of the fees you have to pay for visas, allow longer stays, so people might travel further outside of Bali and reduce the high import taxes on alcohol.

Tourism officials in Bali are confident the damage done to the industry from the recent bombings in Jakarta will only be minor.

“Until August 31, we have insignificant tourist arrival cancellation ranged 0-30 percent,” Ben Sukma, chairman the Association of Indonesia Tours and Travel told reporters.

“We also suffer cancellation of a cruise from Japan to Bali province, consisting of 1,800 people,” said Ben.

A martial arts tournament organized by the World Federation of Karate-Do Organizations has cancelled the tournament in Bali which was to be held from Saturday to Sunday this week.

The Culture and Tourism Minister Jero Wacik estimated the tourism sector would take 6 months to recover.

“Indonesia has a lot of experience dealing with crises,” he said Wednesday at a press conference in the capital.

“We’ve been hit by bombs, tsunami, bird flu and financial crises, but we’ve survived. We always survive.

“We needed just one year to recover from the second Bali bombing. I have a gut feeling this time we’ll need only six months to recover.”