Malaysians have diverted their holidays to other regional destinations after the weekend bomb blast in Indonesia's Bali island, an association of tour operators said today.

There was "no significant trend" of people cancelling travel plans altogether, said Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents president Tunku Iskandar.

"There have been cancellations to Bali as to be expected and to a certain extent to other parts of Indonesia as well but not to other parts of the region," he told AFP .

"We are seeing people diverting their travel elsewhere, either domestically to Malaysia or to some other regional destinations such as Thailand and China."

But due to the forthcoming holiday season, travel agents were finding it hard to accommodate changes as most airlines have been fully booked, he said.

100 percent cancellation

Tunku Iskandar said Matta would hold an international travel fair this weekend and would seek to promote Bali, a popular destination for Malaysians especially during school holidays.

"We are trying to help our neighbour by getting travel agents to keep this negative trend as short as possible and see how we can package Bali again to be atractive," he said.

Matta expects some 80,000 people to attend the three-day fair beginning Friday which offers bargains and promotional packages, he added.

Some tour operators have suspended travel to Bali after Saturday's incident which killed more than 180 people.

A spokeswoman for Kent Horizon Tours said there was "100 percent cancellation" by travellers under its vacation packages to Bali until mid-November.

Sime Holiday said all of its travellers have cancelled plans to go to Bali and that interest in the resort island has plunged.

But a spokesman said travel to other popular destinations in the region such as Thailand's Phuket island was largely unaffected, contrary to belief that regional tourism would be devastated after the Bali blast. AFP