Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno met with Indian Ambassador Manoj Kumar Bharti on March 17 in Bali in their second such meeting to discuss the possibility of opening a Mumbai-Denpasar travel corridor, including direct flights.

“India is a big contributor to foreign tourist arrivals in Indonesia, and most visitors from India go to Bali. Perhaps there is a cultural similarity or the destination and tourism products are suitable,” minister Sandiaga said of the plan at a press conference on Monday, March 22.

He added that the ministry would implement strict health protocols at tourist sites and double down on test, trace, treat (3T) procedures as a requirement for opening the travel corridor. He did not mention if potential holiday perks would apply to tourists that used the travel corridor.

Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno (leftmost) and Indian Ambassador Manoj Kumar Bharti (center left) met in Inaya Putri Bali resort, Nusa Dua, Bali, on March 17. (Kemenparekraf/Kemenparekraf)

"How the [Balinese] practice religious teachings in their daily lives, which is different from India, will be an interesting experience for Indian tourists when visiting Bali," ambassador Bharti said in a statement on March 17.

Bharti also expressed optimism that the Bali administration could inoculate 2 million residents by July, which would increase confidence among Indian tourists in visiting Bali.

“We hope that the cooperation will be successful and bring back Bali's economy, which is reliant on their tourism sector,” he said, adding that he had also discussed investment and trade opportunities with the Tourism Ministry in other sectors such as Indonesia’s creative economy and digital economy.

According to Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data, BPS, Bali's economy contracted 12.21 percent year-on-year (yoy) in the fourth quarter of 2020. During the same period, the island province saw just 261 international tourists, a staggering decline from 1.6 million visitors in 2019.

Meanwhile, BPS data show that the arrival of Indian tourists to Bali increased from 264,516 arrivals in 2017 to 374,043 arrivals in 2019. India was also the second largest contributor of foreign tourist arrivals to Ngurah Rai International Airport, Bali’s main airport, with Indian nationals comprising 6 percent of all tourist arrivals in 2019, second only to Chinese tourists at 19 percent.

The ministry’s plan to open a travel corridor to Bali aligns with the President’s directive to open the country to international travelers by July. However, one of the terms for reopening Bali’s tourist industry is to vaccinate at least 2 million local residents. On Monday, the Health Ministry sent 290,000 vaccine doses to Bali.

Read also: Indonesia reopens travel corridors amid fears of new virus variants

As part of its plans to revive its tourist sector this year, the Bali administration is preparing a priority vaccination program to create three “green zones” of zero COVID-19 transmission in Ubud, Sanur and the Indonesia Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) in Nusa Dua.

In a statement released on March 17, Sandiaga said if the program was successful, it could be replicated in other tourist hubs in the province, such as Kuta and Seminyak.

“The [Indian ambassador] said this would increase the confidence of Indian tourists to start using direct flights, which we will [facilitate] through a travel corridor arrangement," he said.

Sandiaga added that once the travel corridor was in place, the Tourism Ministry and related agencies would monitor and evaluate progress in Bali’s vaccination rollout as well as the preparedness of the province’s polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing laboratories, e-visa facility and airport.

He also stressed that setting up the travel corridors would depend on individual arrangements with each country, and that these countries of origin should have a high vaccination rate and strict 3T protocols in place.

Arranging an international travel corridor ultimately falls under the Foreign Ministry, which established travel corridors with China, Singapore, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last year to facilitate essential travel for business and diplomacy. These corridors generally allow businesspeople and diplomats into Indonesia without requiring quarantine, provided they have local sponsors.

But Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah told The Jakarta Post by text message on Monday that neither it nor the Indonesian Embassy in New Delhi had received “any information” about the Tourism Ministry’s plan to open a travel corridor with India.

Janianton Damanik, a professor specializing in community-based development at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) who also heads a research team at the university’s Center for Tourism Studies (Puspar UGM), said that while India was a prospective tourism market, the Bali administration needed to ramp up health and safety measures to ensure travel confidence among potential tourists.

“This segment is interesting to explore, as it can have a significant impact on foreign tourist diversification,” Janianton told the Post on March 18. He added that foreign tourists to Bali were usually middle- to high-income earners.

Continuing, Janianton said the province also needed complete vaccination coverage and widespread implementation of the health protocols in all public spaces, not just at tourist destinations and hotels, as well as enforcing sanctions against violators.

“It might sound repressive, but it will have a more lasting, positive impact,” he said.

Read also: Expatriates join Indonesians in calling out foreign anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers in Bali

A survey conducted in December 2020 by Indian tourism company SOTC Travel and its subsidiary Thomas Cook India showed that 71 percent of respondents felt confident about air travel, with 50 percent preferring short-haul trips to destinations such as Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

The SOTC-Thomas Cook survey also found that 75 percent of respondents were willing to spend more than 100,000 Indian rupees (US$1,382) per person for leisure travel.