Bali sees better tourism outlook with increased tourist arrivals

The tourism industry in Bali is upbeat about better times ahead with an increase in foreign tourist arrivals as of September and with a new minister and deputy minister for tourism.

In the first nine months of this year, the number of foreign tourists, from many countries around the world, coming to the resort island reached 2,052,083, a rise of 10.36 percent from the 1,859,459 arrivals in the same period last year.

Throughout the year, the number of overseas arrivals had consistently surpassed 200,000 people per month, said Ida Bagus Kade Subhiksu, head of the provincial tourism agency. The highest arrival rate was 278,041 foreign tourists in July.

With the increase, the tourism industry in Bali was hopeful that the targeted number of foreign tourist arrivals of 2.7 million people this year would be achieved.

Subhiksu said that the island saw the number of tourists from the US rising by 21.61 percent to 64,230 people, despite the financial crisis in that country. The US ranked 10th among the countries of origin of overseas visitors, with a share of 3.13 percent.

“We all know that the US is still recovering from the financial crisis, but there are more American tourists visiting Bali. We hope the [economic] conditions will get better and we will see a further increase,” Subhiksu said.

Foreign tourist arrivals are still dominated by Australia with 585,693, followed by China with 179,219 and Japan with 142,670. Malaysia ranked fourth with 121,548 and Taiwan is in the fifth position with 101,310.

South Korea contributed 91,850 tourists, followed by France with 87,378 and Singapore with 76,163.

All the countries of origin showed increased numbers, except Japan and South Korea, with decreases of 27.27 percent and 1.54 percent respectively.

Bagus Sudibya, coordinator of the Bali and Nusa Tenggara’s Association of Travel Agents, added that Bali still needed to raise its bargaining position in the international tourism market.

“We should not only use numbers [of foreign tourist arrivals] as the standard, but should also focus on attracting the quality market,” Sudibya said.

Indonesia should have seen a higher number of arrivals compared to other top Asian destinations like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand — which were in fact always successful in attracting tens of millions of tourists.

“We have only been able to attract 7 million tourists per annum, despite our greater potential in art and culture,” he said, adding that the tourism industry in Bali was ready to support the drafting and implementation of better and more concrete programs.

Ida Bagus Ngurah Wijaya, head of the Indonesian Tourism Industry Union in Bali, shared similar views, saying Indonesia had all the potential to develop better tourism.

“We have already laid strong foundations. Our focus now should be on how to build on them. Bali is always ready for this. We have around 65,000 hotel rooms available.”

There was further optimism in the island’s tourism industry following the inauguration of the new Tourism Creative Economy Minister Mari Elka Pangestu and the new deputy minister Sapta Nirwandar.

Ida Bagus Sidharta Putra from the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association in Bali said that new leaders always brought new spirit and expectations, and the new minister, the former trade minister, had the capability to improve the country’s tourism.

“She has proven her performance in leading the Trade Ministry. We hope she will be able to raise our tourism industry to a better position, which is balanced between supply, demand and the supporting facilities.”

Sidharta said Bali already had adequate facilities for tourists, but the minister should work harder to improve infrastructure, including on how to provide better facilities at the entrance ports to increase convenience for arriving tourists, as well as minimizing traffic jams.

Sidharta also urged the minister to diversify the tourism market abroad to anticipate unfavorable situations in certain countries that could lower the tourist arrival rate, for example a decrease in the arrival of Japanese tourists due to the earthquake and tsunami.

Sudibya agreed that the new minister and deputy minister were a perfect team with undoubted capability.