Flight bookings to Indonesia have slumped by a quarter in the wake of two earthquakes which struck the island of Lombok.
The quakes nine days between each other killed almost 600 people and displaced 156,000.
Indonesia was having a good year for tourism with bookings from January 1 up 10% on the equivalent period in 2017.
But that growth all but ceased after the first quake with bookings falling 26% following the second, according to research by ForwardKeys which analyses more than 17 million flight booking transactions a day.
The tourist trade has been particularly badly affected because bookings to Bali, the country’s top tourist destination, which is adjacent to Lombok, have fallen much further than those to Indonesia as a whole.
From January 1 until the first earthquake on July 29, bookings for Bali were 15.2% up. But bookings have fallen by 42.9% since the second quake.
By comparison Indonesia’s capital Jakarta has fared much better with bookings down by 2.2%.
ForwardKeys CEO Olivier Jager said: “In the face of such an overwhelming natural disaster, it is not surprising that there has been a collapse in travel bookings.
“One can only feel enormous sympathy for Indonesia and for the people of Lombok.”