Could be a bad year for Bali tourism

Two hotels I know of here in Candi Dasa say they are both looking at good advance bookings for this year, and I do believe them.
 
spicyayam said:
I don't follow the news too closely, but acts of terrorism seem to be getting worse. This time now at an airport in Brussels https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...f77dec-f001-11e5-a61f-e9c95c06edca_story.html
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I read that the bombings at the Brussel's airport was carried out in the insecure area of the departure hall.....prior to check-in.
My recollection of Bali and Jakarta airports is there is security bag checks before entering the departure building and only those with tickets are allowed in.
Maybe, surprisingly, Indonesia is ahead of the West in airport security.
 
I love the final sentence: Officials remain cautiously hopeful that both visitor numbers and tax revenues for Karangasem will increase through the end of 2016.

You just can't beat a "cautiously hopeful" official.

If you count walkers in Candi there haven't been many but as I said the hotels I know seem to be doing well but mostly through traffic supplied by travel agents whose favor they curry and I would bet the payments for those guests goes into some Denpasar/Jakarta coffers before being taxed. Taxes locally are only levied on locally earned dosh.

Does that make any sense? (haven't had a single beer today)
 
My wife had this conversation with me just yesterday...she said some of her gym pals, who are managers of small villa resorts, restaurants and spas, all say that tourism income has dramatically dropped from this time in previous years.

The tourism authorities like to boast that numbers are increasing, and maybe they are correct, but my observation is that they are mainly from China and they don't spend much.

When I lived in Hong Kong the Japanese were big tourists....it was reported they came on package tours paid by their employers and only went to Japanese owned hotels, eat in Japanese owned restaurants and purchased in Japanese owned stores.
The only money the Hong Kong economy got was the airport tax when they left.
 
davita said:
My wife had this conversation with me just yesterday...she said some of her gym pals, who are managers of small villa resorts, restaurants and spas, all say that tourism income has dramatically dropped from this time in previous years.

The tourism authorities like to boast that numbers are increasing, and maybe they are correct, but my observation is that they are mainly from China and they don't spend much.

When I lived in Hong Kong the Japanese were big tourists....it was reported they came on package tours paid by their employers and only went to Japanese owned hotels, eat in Japanese owned restaurants and purchased in Japanese owned stores.
The only money the Hong Kong economy got was the airport tax when they left.
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Out of curiosity last night entered a door of a restaurant on Sunset Rd. that stated only :RESTAURANT", nothing more and no name. The place was empty, but the many rows of low tables gave it away. It was for Japanese only. Some folks really never leave home.
 
You won't find a bigger bunch of racists on the planet. They make the KKK look like boy scouts.
 
Markit said:
You won't find a bigger bunch of racists on the planet. They make the KKK look like boy scouts.
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Absolutely agree...been many times to Tokyo and Osaka and tried to get into jazz clubs and been refused..."No Gaijin...Japanese only!"
 
This was the reason for my too expansive poll. I didn't want to come down too hard on a particular regency where in at least one community the largest local industry is stealing sand from the beach. The obvious guilt felt by the diggers and knowledge of foreign disapproval creates a turning of the back towards other than non-diggers which certainly counters the stereotypical "friendly Balinese" concept of Bali the world has long known. Along with this are racing motorbikes where two youths recently died in a moronic game of chicken.
The fact that this in itself hurts tourism and the environment without anyone in officialdom really giving a damn is evident. Wouldbe be buyers of land as well as hotel operators can be unhappy, but the icing on the cake is a beachfront (not 100 meters back), actual beachfront existence of a karaoke joint blaring loudly till all hours of the night and disrupting sleep in the process.
When many of us can recall the throngs of tourists jamming the streets of Legian Road as compared to diminishing pedestrians today we can only wonder at the mindlessness of those predicting an increase in tourism. Who the hell would want to visit such a place?
 
Muggy this rant may make sense to some or many of the people here but not to me. I don't know the back stories of any of the things you have complained about.

But would like to.

Care to pull back a bit and explain?
 
Terrorism is in many countries, it is bad for tourism of course but I think most of the countries suffer the consequences. Hope Bali especially won't be affected because it's too bad, the majority of Balinese and tourists are friendly and respect each others. After all the Indonesian Moto is Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity).
 
I was reading some interesting stats today for bali , re oversupply of rooms versus arrivals , local and international , occupancy across bali is around 25 to 30 % yearly average ! which is way below a profitable number , and they are still building , economics of a mad house if you ask me , never mind the destruction of the few bits of green left in south bali , and of course the stress on the ever diminishing supply of fresh water , not to mention the traffic , rubbish etc .
 
I must go south for provisions from my base in Jembrana about every 10 days. It is hot, overcrowded, and suffering from traffic, but the upside is that I can stay at a recently new hotel with nice amenities for only 350k rupiah per night. The owner must be losing his ass with perhaps 20% occupancy, and I can't imagine even a rosy tourism future in the long term term allowing a recoup.
 
mugwump said:
I must go south for provisions from my base in Jembrana about every 10 days. It is hot, overcrowded, and suffering from traffic, but the upside is that I can stay at a recently new hotel with nice amenities for only 350k rupiah per night. The owner must be losing his ass with perhaps 20% occupancy, and I can't imagine even a rosy tourism future in the long term term allowing a recoup.
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yap bali now is a cheap destination ,as I hear a lot of newly built hotels are up for sale because they losing money , in java, if you compare hotel group room rates, almost double , of course % occupancy is in the profitable range .
 
From what I can see everything in Java Is double,i just arrived back home after 4 months in Java and Im still shocked at the prices there compared to one year ago,
 
Security in the airports of Indonesia are a joke, when i arrived in Singapore from Bali earlier this year the very first thing as you came off the plane everyone was screened what does that tell you. Again earlier in the year i was in Bandung and someone had left a bag at Check in i pointed this out to the staff they said could not remove it as it belong to someone and they would be in trouble (if the owner returned). I then reported it to security who then took it to the Xray machine i moved as far away as possible.
 
modelt1826 said:
Security in the airports of Indonesia are a joke, when i arrived in Singapore from Bali earlier this year the very first thing as you came off the plane everyone was screened what does that tell you. Again earlier in the year i was in Bandung and someone had left a bag at Check in i pointed this out to the staff they said could not remove it as it belong to someone and they would be in trouble (if the owner returned). I then reported it to security who then took it to the Xray machine i moved as far away as possible.
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I don't know...what does it tell me? I don't get why screening arriving passengers coming from an aircraft makes anything safer in regard to terrorism....surely checking prior to entering an airport is more secure. They don't let anyone into the departure hall in Bali/Jakarta without a ticket/boarding pass....unlike most EU airports, including Brussels, where the bombers detonated their bombs. I'll bet that changes soon.

Absolute security is unavailable in a vast area like an airport/arena/railway/bus station/pavilion/rock concert unless security is so intense that it becomes untenable.

edit: just had a brain fart....they screen bags on arrival at Jakarta and Bali International. Been nearly 2 years since I went thru' Bali international arrival but my bags were x-rayed on arrival. I recall because they found my brand new 3-in-1 computer but put it aside and questioned me on my giant carton of seniors vitamin pills. They even opened but quickly closed 'coz they smell disgusting.
 
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The suicide bombers in Brussels detonated before the security check. There are crowds as you approach security checks in the Bali airport, so the same sort of problem could happen.
 
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