Louts, Bogans and Yobbos Not Welcome in Bali
Badly Behaving Ozzie Tourists in Bali an Embarrassment to Expat Australian Business Council Members.
(4/10/2010) According to an article in The West Australian, the Australian-Indonesia Business Council warns that the current upsurge in Australian tourists is being "marred by drunken bogans."
For those unfamiliar with Australian and New Zealand slang, a bogan is a pejorative term used to describe a crude, uneducated and badly behaved member of the lower social economic classes.
Angela Pownall writing for The West Australian quotes Ross Taylor, the National vice-president of the Australia-Indonesia Business Council (AIBC) as blaming cheap flights, a strong Australian dollar and the lull in terrorism as feeding the surge in Australian tourism to Bali. Concomitant with the larger number of Australian visitors visiting Bali over the past 18 months is, according to Taylor, an increase in anti-social behaviour.
"It's disappointing to see the few that really give Australians a bad name, with loud, drunken and aggressive behaviour," he said.
Australian tourists have displaced the Japanese, becoming the largest source of foreign visitors to Bali, producing 446,042 tourists to the island in 2009, an increase of 45.43% over arrivals in 2008. The boom in tourist has been aided by a strengthening in the Australian dollar over the past five years increasing its values from Rp. 5,500 to Rp. 8,500 over the same period.
For many Australian visitors, Bali is seen almost as a domestic destination, only 3 hours away from Perth via more than 54 flights connecting Western Australia and Bali every week.
"There is no place for drunken yobbos in Bali," says Taylor, urging people to remember that Bali is a gracious and religious society.
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