Tourism in Bali has been hit hard by the pandemic in the past two years. When Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan announced last week that international travelers would be allowed to directly enter the island starting from Feb. 4, local businesses welcomed the plan with eagerness.

“We’ve been waiting for a long time. So, any plan to encourage tourism in Bali should be welcomed and supported with optimism,” 42-year-old Ida Bagus Kharisma Wijaya, a Balinese businessman who runs Segara Village Hotel, Byrdhouse Beach Club, Kejora Suites (all in Sanur, southeast Bali) and Bapak Bakery (in Kerobokan, Badung, Bali) told The Jakarta Post in an interview.

“The pandemic has been going on for two years. [We hope] that this announcement will signal the revival of [tourism] in Bali."

Luhut’s announcement on Jan. 31 came around three months after the government said Bali would reopen for certain international arrivals in October 2021. The countries on the list included South Korea, China, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and New Zealand.  At the time, foreign nationals who wanted to go to Bali were required to show proof of their hotel room reservation for a mandatory eight-day quarantine at their own expense.

Under the latest announcement, the quarantine period was shortened to five days. According to the Foreign Ministry’s website, international travelers need to obtain a visa first before entering the country. Visa on Arrival and Visa-Free Entry services are suspended until further notice.

Bali attracted 6.2 million foreign visitors in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic hit globally. The island was forced to close down for direct flights in April 2020, devastating tourism, which usually holds up 54 percent of its economy.

Kharisma conceded that his businesses did not prepare anything specific to welcome more tourists in the future. Instead, his staff at Segara Village Hotel will prepare the facility for visitors needing to meet quarantine requirements, as well as follow additional health protocols for other businesses of his.

“We’ll just follow the government’s rules,” he said diplomatically.

In Ubud in Gianyar, the northern part of Bali, 49-year-old Antonius Andi Sutejo and his wife, Anna Sutanto, 43, welcome the Bali reopening announcement and hope that the tourism-reliant island can slowly recover. The two have run a small Indonesian restaurant, Bula Vinaka, in Ubud since 2017.

“It would’ve actually been better if Bali had opened last October […] Now that Bali can fully reopen [on Feb. 4], it means that [the island] is ready,” Antonius, originally from Kutoarjo, Purworejo in Central Java, told the Post.

As a restaurant owner, Antonius is no stranger to life giving his business lemons. Six months after opening Bula Vinaka in 2017, his business was significantly slowed down due to Mount Agung's eruptions in November that year. It took Antonius and Anna eight months to recover their business and turn lemons into lemonade. In fact, they began serving around 40 to 50 customers per day.

When the pandemic began to hit the island in early 2020, the couple decided to shut down their restaurant from February to March. After they were allowed to open the restaurant amid public activity restrictions (PPKM), Bula Vinaka only served six to seven people per day in 2020.

“In 2021, the number was lower. [We only served] one or two customers a day. Sometimes in one month, there were only six to 10 customers in total,” said Antonius, who observed that the decrease came after long-term foreign visitors, who had been “stuck” in Ubud in 2020, decided to leave in January 2021 after experiencing financial strains.

When Bula Vinaka first opened in 2017, the restaurant was open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and could additionally stay open until midnight due to the number of customers needed to be served. Antonius and Anna also employed one staff plus three interns (all of them young locals) at the time.

Currently, the restaurant opens for business at 1 p.m. and closes around 8 p.m., and both Antonius and Anna take turns managing the restaurant without any staff.

Despite the challenges that he and his wife are currently facing, Antonius remains hopeful for the future, especially since the government’s announcement on Jan. 31.

“We hope that things recover quickly. In Ubud alone, of all the restaurants that I've been familiar with for the past five years, only 5 percent have remained open,” Antonius noted.

“Bali does need to reopen; it’s not possible not to open. It’s been two years. Not opening now will only devastate Bali even further."

According to a Katadata study, the number of people in Bali who have been fully vaccinated has reached 85.58 percent from the target as of Oct. 24 last year. The island also began to administer booster shots to the general public last month. Previously, only eligible recipients such as medical professionals were allowed to receive booster shots.

Antonius said this was a sign that Bali was ready to accept international tourists.

In addition, Antonius hopes the government will allow cheaper hotels and homestays to host tourists who are required to undergo quarantine. Currently, the government has assigned only several hotels for quarantine purposes, from three-star to five-star hotels.

“When it comes to the security system, Bali actually is the most complete [compared to other provinces]. For me, the government needs to update its list of quarantine hotels. Bali has pecalang [traditional Balinese security guards] that are effective in supervising guests. Travelers could just pick which homestay and the respective banjar [customary village] of that area can assign pecalang [for that homestay],” Antonius said.

While both Kharisma and Antonius remain optimistic about Bali reopening, Adi, 42, who manages Mixwell, a bar in Seminyak that regularly features drag queen performers, conceded that he was a little bit pessimistic about the number of international arrivals due to quarantine obligations.

“But of course, [the announcement] is good news for tourism in Bali,” said Adi.

He added that many drag performers had lost their jobs because of the pandemic and had mostly relied on savings or financial assistance from family and friends to stay afloat. Therefore, the reopening of Bali is expected to slowly recover the economy so that more and more people could return to their pre-pandemic jobs, he said.

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