Tag Archives: Bali Tourism
Bali Tourism Arrivals Up
January 2009 saw the best January for International inbounds Bali has seen in a long time. The figures were up 17 percent on January 2008, which is great news for the Bali Tourism Industry.
Australia has taken the number one spot for international inbounds to Bali for the first time over Japan. January also saw South Korea who was the 4th biggest inbound arrivals slip to 7th on the list of international inbounds, down 23 percent for the same month last year.
China moved to 3rd spot for international inbounds and is rapidly becoming a tourist spot for Chinese travelers. Malaysia for the first time has entered into the top five countries for visitors to Bali, which is also a significant increase for the same period last year.
In conclusion, Bali has seen great gains with international inbounds and hopes to maintain this level which will see the country thrive during these economic hard times.
Bali’s Spiritual Tourism set to soar
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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Chinese tourists to Bali almost double
The number of Chinese tourists coming to Indonesia’s resort island of Bali has risen to 23,100 in January, an increase of 82.6 percent compared to the December period.
Chinese tourists made up 14.01 percent of foreign tourists visiting and holidaying on the resort island in January said the local statistic agency.
“That is a 82.6 percent increase from the 12,654 Chinese tourists that visited the island in the preceding month,” head of the Bali Provincial Office of the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) Ida Komang Wisnu said.
In 2008, 131,319 Chinese tourists and holiday makers visited Bali, which is 55.82 percent up from the year before when the number was 84,278.
China is now ranked the third after Australia and Japan in terms of the amount of tourists visiting and holidaying in Bali.
Bali enjoys Tourism boost
BALI is enjoying a boost in tourism, thanks to an increase in the number of Australians returning to the Island of the Gods.
Australians are returning to the resort island in droves, despite the Australian governments travel advisory continuing to warn tourists against traveling to Indonesia.
The US government has lifted its travel warning for Indonesia, saying the security in the country no longer requires the use of such a warning.
Balinese tourism operators say that it is time for Australia to follow suit and do the same.
An increase in the number of Australians visiting Bali has continued to grow this year, prompting Garuda Indonesia to put on extra flights from Darwin, Melbourne and Sydney. The airline also expects to increase the number of flights out from Perth in the near future.
Stats show that the number of Australians traveling to Bali has risen by more than 57 per cent in the first quarter of 2008 compared to last year.
This builds on strong growth in 2007, with Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showing a 63 per cent increase in the number of Australians visiting or holidaying in Bali last year.
The 2007 calendar year saw, 206,427 Australian residents traveled to Indonesia on holiday, which was up from 126,595 in 2006.
The 2002 and 2005 terror bombings, which took the lives of more than 230 people, including 92 Australians, had a devastating impact on Bali’s tourism industry.
Australia is Bali’s second biggest tourists source, with the 78,500 Australian visitors making up approximately 13 per cent of the island’s foreign tourists, slightly closing the gap on Japan at approximately 20 per cent.
Mason, who has lived in Bali for over 20 years, believes the Australian advisory is no longer needed, saying Indonesia’s success in arresting Jemaah Islamiah operatives and supporters in the years after the Bali bombings.
“I would be extremely surprised if it ever happened again,” he says. “It’s been a complete change in mentality.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), however, is maintaining its travel advisory, which warns Australian citizens to consider their need to travel to Indonesia, including Bali, due to the very high threat of terrorist attack.
