Image: Bulgari Hotel waiting for a few more guests. Credit: Bulgari
Chairman of the Badung branch of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association, I Gusti Ngurah Rai Suryawijaya, said last night that the Badung region has seen an influx of domestic tourists in the past days.
Bali began to get busy again as soon as the decline in the PPKM status, which dropped to Level 3 two weeks ago.
“Since the Covid-19 cases in Bali and Jakarta have decreased, domestic tourist arrivals are now running at 5,000-6,000 per persons per day. And that’s only by air, not by land,” said Rai, as quoted in tempo.co.
Rai stated that the number of domestic tourist arrivals to Bali had fallen to only hundreds of people per day during the PPKM. Before the travel restrictions started on July 3, 2021, domestic tourist arrivals to Bali had been around 9 to 10 thousand people per day.
The emergency PPKM Level 4 put pressure on Bali’s tourism sector again, with hotel business again dropping and caused a number of businesses to temporarily close.
Although currently domestic visits are increasing, Rai said that the hotel occupancy rates are still down and not even reaching a break-even point in most establishments.
“The domestic business is not enough of course. The number of rooms available in Bali is more than 146,000. If only 10,000 domestic tourists come, it’s not much,” said Rai.
He continued that the local business community hoped that the government would immediately finalise policies to reopen the international tourism gates. He claimed that all businesses in around Bali, especially in the accommodation sector, were ready to welcome foreign guests.
He also told reporters separately that 35 Bali hotels have been verified ready for quarantine visitors.
“In addition to the 35 hotels that have passed, we are currently processing 55 more and their locations are spread across all points in Bali,” Rai said in Tempo on Sunday (3/10).
“Staff and management in all tourism orientated businesses in Bali have been vaccinated twice or fully dosed. We have also obtained the CHSE certificate as required by the government,” he said.
Bali is ready to open. Let’s see what happens tonight.
