T

he province is forecast to have collected up to US$60 million from Visa on Arrival (VoA) at its international gates in 2013, a slight increase from 2012'€™s income, an expert has said.

Bagus Sudibya, a senior tourism observer, attributed the high income to Bali'€™s good record in maintaining growth in incoming tourists.

'€œThis number is only the direct income. There is much more from indirect income, such as from foreign travelers'€™ expenditure on hotel rooms, transportation, souvenirs, etc.,'€ he said.

Bali is one of Indonesia'€™s main entry points for foreign tourists, and has an increasing number of incoming travelers every year.

Around 2.97 million foreigners visited the resort island between January and November last year, a 13.55-percent increase from the same period in 2012.

Bali even exceeded its target to entice 3.18 million foreign tourists by three percent last year, and saw around 3.28 million international travelers arrive.

Bank Indonesia'€™s (BI) office for Bali and Nusa Tenggara reported that the province collected $13 million, $14.9 million and $18.7 million in the first, second and third quarters of last year.

'€œBy the third quarter, Bali had already received $46.6 million. Income from the last quarter of 2013 will at least reach $15 million,'€ he forecast.

Separately, Bali Tourism Agency head Ida Bagus Kade Subhiksu said that the island had been enjoying increasing income from VoA for the last few years.

Data shows that the province collected $23.08 million in 2007, $27.86 million in 2008 and $32.58 million in 2009.

The figure rose significantly to $50.58 million in 2010. In 2011 and 2012, $56.41 million and $58.36 were collected from this fee.

Subhiksu thanked the incoming tourist growth for the progressive income. From 2007 to 2012, he said the number kept fluctuating, but was mostly higher than that expected in Bali'€™s strategic plan for tourism development, which was nine percent.

Consecutively, growth from 2007 to 2012 was 31.10 percent, 18.26 percent, 13.26 percent, 11.8 percent, 10.57 percent and 4.91 percent.

He expected growth last year to have reached 10 percent.

From the island'€™s market of 75 countries, Subhiksu explained that tourists from 64 of these countries were charged for the VoA.

Meanwhile, the rest were permitted to enter and remain for 30 days without a visa. The visa-free countries are Brunei, Chile, Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia, Morocco, Peru, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

According to Subhiksu, the number of tourists from most of the countries burdened with visa regulations kept increasing. He said those were among the top-20 main markets for Bali, including Australia, China,
Japan, Korea, France and England.