In Reply to: MBR posted by carly on Wednesday, 10. May 2006 at 11:42 Bali Time:
I was there a couple of weeks ago, and it was quiet compared to last year. Many of the restaurants are empty, have just a few tables, and are closing early. The same thing seemed to apply to the shops. It seems that those Hotels that depended a great deal on the Aussie market are the ones suffering. My personal main concerns are that the hotels etc must be making a loss, and have done for several months, and how long are these hotel owners prepared to make a loss before they close the places down? second concern is the desperate attitude of many of the shop staff and beach vendors, most of the tourists of all nationalities that I spoke to said that it was driving them crazy, as they felt they were not being left alone to look at shop items, and this in turn drove them straight to the malls.