From begging and alcohol-induced acts to crimes like theft and skimming, he expressed concerns about the rising numbers of lawbreaking visitors in his area.

“Back then, would we have ever envisioned that there would be tourists committing crimes, like skimming or robbery? I’m quite surprised myself. How have we come to this?” Wasista asked.

Wasista’s qualms reflect a public order problem that has haunted Bali ever since it saw a huge visitor uptick in the last decade or two, experts say. In a broader context, it presents a big challenge for Indonesia’s shift in economic focus to tourism as an engine of growth with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s ambitious tourist arrival and destination development targets.

Around 6.07 million tourists arrived in Bali in 2018, triple the 2.08 million tourists in 2008 and six times more than the 1.1 million tourists in 1998, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data shows. More than 5.7 million visitors set foot on the island between January and November 2019, representing more than half of tourist arrivals using air transportation across Indonesia.

Expanding visa exemptions was a major driver of the hike, but the quality of tourism did not improve along with it, said the director of Udayana University's research institution, the Centre of Excellence in Tourism, Agung Suryawan Wiranatha in December.

Indonesia welcomes citizens of 169 countries without requiring visas or only demanding visas on arrival, according to the Passport Index, which ranked the archipelago high at 17 in its “most welcoming countries” score.

“They [tourists] enter freely [with visa exemptions]. We don’t know their job background and whether they have enough income [to travel to and from Bali] or whether they are decent people. This is where [crimes and misdemeanors] can happen,” Agung said.

Indonesia was ranked poorly in the 2019 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report published by the World Economic Forum on Sept. 4, 2019. It was listed 12th out of 22 Asia-Pacific countries and 40th globally out of 140 countries, though it is an improvement from being ranked 42nd in 2017 and 50th in 2015.

In December 2019, a 19-year-old Australian citizen was arrested by the Kuta Police in Bali after he allegedly assaulted a security guard at a fast-food restaurant in Legian while looking for a lost mobile phone.

Police have also arrested numerous foreigners in drug trafficking and skimming cases. One of the most famous cases was the arrest in 2005 of the “Bali Nine”, a heroin-trafficking group.

Bali Police Special Crimes Investigation Directorate (Ditreskrimsus) data shows that at least seven tourists were arrested under its directorate in 2016, with the figure jumping to 15 in 2017.

The Bali Police were not available for updates on the number of arrests in in the last two years when contacted by The Jakarta Post, although its members have said that they believed the number increased in 2018. Nonetheless, media reports indicate that the Bali Police handled 64 cases involving foreigners between January and August in 2019.

In handling such crimes, Agung from Udayana University urged policymakers to evaluate visa exemptions to certain countries while requiring tourists to have two-way tickets and insurance before giving visas on arrival.

Bali Tourism Agency acting head I Putu Astawa said local authorities were finalizing a bylaw (Perda) that would provide standards to all tourist activities and institutions.

Astawa added that his team would support evaluating visa exemptions if the central government would raise the issue and draft policies for it.

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