Hotel moratorium criticized

Denpasar city administration has urged the Bali governor to reconsider its plan to impose a moratorium on hotel developments in Denpasar, Gianyar and Badung regencies.

Putu Budiasa, head of Denpasar Tourism office, said each regency and municipality in Bali has different potential. The city is currently developing cultural tourism, which requires support from the hotel industry and related parties.

“Denpasar still needs more hotel rooms to accommodate its increasing number of visitors to the city,” Budiasa explained.

Based on the city master plan, a number of areas are still viable to make way for hotel developments. The areas include Sanur, Jl. Teuku Umar, Jl. Mahendradata and Jl. Gatot Subroto, he said.

“The inclusion of three regencies [Badung, Denpasar and Gianyar] into a negative investment list is considered unwise. It requires further study,” he added.

Previously, Governor Made Mangku Pastika announced a planned moratorium on hotel developments in these regencies for economic and environmental reasons.

There are still uneven development progresses across Bali, which are dominated by Badung, Denpasar and Gianyar regencies in the Southern part of the island.

Other regencies, including Buleleng in North Bali, Karangasem in East Bali, and Jembrana in the West need further economic boost from the hotel industry.

To support his policy, data from Udayana University also shows that over-development of hotels and villas have had a serious environmental impact on the island.

The construction of hotels and villas in catchment areas and water catchments areas have endangered the island’s water supplies.

Nyoman Sunarta, a hydrologist from Udayana, estimated that by 2015, Bali would face a huge clean water shortage of 27.6 billion cubic meters per year.

Large hotels’ thirst for clean water is huge, while the availability of clean water in Bali is only around 4.7 billion cubic meters per year.

Bali has currently 46,000 hotel rooms, mostly located in the three regencies. Denpasar has 25 starred hotels with a capacity of more than 3,000 rooms. Non-star hotels number 187 with 4,800 room in total.

“We still need an additional 1,000 rooms,” Budiasa said, adding that many hotels in Denpasar were always fully booked during holiday.

In addition to Denpasar, it was reported that Badung regency, Bali’s richest with Kuta, Nusa Dua, Jimbaran and other luxury tourist sites inside its boundary, also planned to reject the moratorium.

Governor Pastika admitted it has been quite difficult to coordinate and control such construction since many regencies are struggling to increase their regional revenues as one of the impacts of the regional autonomy implementation.