A travel writer has been asked to leave Indonesia within 30 days because of his inaccurate claims about immigration wait times.
Sebastian wrote a story about his experience in Indonesia. At the time, the post had a title.
Bali Airport Has Become A Total Hellhole With Up To Five Hours Immigration Lineups – Stay Away!
While Sebastian paid for a fast track service at the airport, he claimed that people were close to a breakdown after over five hours of standing in line.
He claimed that people were crying and needed medical attention. He talked to a person in the front of the long time about how long they had been there. He claims that the person looked at their 10AM receipt to see that they had been there for over 5 hours.
Sebastian only spent 53 minutes at the airport, which is a long time if you paid for a fast track service.
The person who wrote the post never claimed to have personally waited for over five hours, but he did say that people should stay away from the island because of that.
After his 30 day tourist visa is up, the author has been asked to leave Indonesian territory by the ministry of law and human rights. There's a reason. He didn't have any firsthand knowledge of the five hour queue.
Some people had to wait for up to two hours to be processed, and not for more than five hours, according to officials. The peak arrival period is Friday afternoon, and 16 immigration counters are being renovated ahead of the G20 Summit.
Sebastian met with the head of immigration at the airport. He thinks someone who arrived at 10AM wouldn't have waited after 3PM.
The situation is difficult. There are going to be a lot of false claims made on the internet. It's nice when a story goes viral as a travel writer. One way to make sure a story goes viral is to claim that an airport is ahellhole and that there were long immigration wait times.
It has to be true for the claim to be valid. If this entire story is based on the claim of one person he asked, then perhaps he can throw that in a story as an anecdote of what someone claimed, instead of making this the basis of the story.
You will get away with making false claims in different countries and destinations. You are unlikely to have authorities come after you if you claim everything. Travelers can be punished for writing bad hotel reviews if they are true.
I am not surprised that Indonesian authorities took action. The biggest industry in Indonesia is tourism. I think he got off lightly because of his track record.
A travel writer has been told to leave within 30 days without the chance to extend his visa. He claimed that people were waiting in line for over five hours to get processed at Denpasar Airport. The data point was from one person.
The information that the wait times were up to two hours was found to be accurate by the authorities.
It is important to be accurate and not exaggerate when writing online when you are a guest in another country. Is Indonesia going to issue him visas in the future?
What do you think about this tale?
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