Bali is seen as one of the world’s top spiritual tourism destinations, however its potential is yet to be fully explored, a seminar heard Saturday.

Wayan Wijayasa, an industry observer of the Denpasar Tourism Academy mentioned, the reality is spiritual tourism was already growing in Bali.

“An example is the fact there is an increase of hotels providing yoga classes. An increasing amount of tourists are traveling to Bali to expand their spirituality, even though we do not have the complete figures yet,” he said.

With a tourism masters degree focusing on Yoga, Wijayasa spoke at a seminar held at Ashram Gandhi Puri Sevagram in Klungkung. This seminar is a section of the continual International Bali-india Yoga Festival.

Wijayasa said the potential to grow such tourism comes predominately from western countries that are interested in learning eastern philosophies in this case yoga. Quoting from a recent study in the US showed approximately 16.5 million people were practicing yoga.

Wijayasa also went onto to say the if just 1 percent of this figure traveled to Bali to participate in spiritual tourism, that would see 160,000 tourists visiting Bali each year.

The recent study also showed the Americans spent around US$2.9 billion on purchasing yoga equipment and classes.

Wijayasa said “Bali could become the main supplier for equipment if it was more creative”

In addition Wijayasa conducted his own studies and found 14 hotels in Ubud that had made yoga classes available.

Having all the natural resources as well as natural scenery, Wijayasa is quite confident that Bali can benefit greatly for this industry.

Other speakers attending the seminar were Ketut Narya, head of research and development at the Bali Tourism Agency, and Indra Udayana, head of the Ashram Gandhi Puri Sevagram.

In spite of the enormous potential, Narya said the provincial administration has yet to come up with a comprehensible concept on how to grow spiritual tourism on the island.

“The growth of spiritual tourism has been completed by practitioners, whereas the provincial administration has yet to work out a development concept,” he said.

Narya went on to say that spiritual tourism was in line with the cultural tourism concept, regulated under Bylaw No. 3/1991 on Cultural Tourism.

“We are also anticipating that spiritual tourism will assist in extending visitors’ length of stay, which will bring higher spending in Bali,” he said.

The agency recorded that in the past year 2008, the average stay in Bali was approximately 10.6 days.

Indra said there is such great potential for spiritual tourism in Bali, and said his own facility; the Ashram Gandhi Puri Sevagram has 5 bedrooms, with guests staying on average, two weeks.

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