DENPASAR ~ The cruise ship Sun Princess cancelled its scheduled port call at Benoa the day after the Jakarta bombings on July 17. It was to have been the liner’s first ever Bali stopover.

The liner’s local agents, PT Beacon Tour, had arranged for the ship’s 2,000 passengers to visit eight areas of Bali. The company’s chief, Jero Gede Karang Tangkid Suarshana, said local losses from the cancellation would run into hundreds of millions of rupiah, much of it money that would have gone to poor rural areas of the island.

He said the cancellation might have a flow-on effect with other cruise ships.

The Sun Princess is scheduled to visit Bali in the 2010 cruise season.