Part I - TimelineThe first western account of visiting Bali by Dutchman Aernoudt Lintgens.
Tourists reached by steamship from Java landing in the port of Buleleng (Singaraja).
The first tourist hotel (The Bali Hotel) was opened in Denpasar.
Adrien Jean Le Mayeur de Merpes, one of Bali’s famous expats, based himself in Sanur.
Bob Koke and his wife Louise opened the Kuta Beach Hotel, creating an informal (for the period) type of accommodation and atmosphere for visitors.
Bali’s international airport, Ngurah Rai in Tuban (although referred to as Denpasar) opened.
The idea for Nusa Dua started with a stretch of mangrove and white sand beach on the eastern Bukit being transformed into a line of 20 luxury resorts.
Mass tourism started to make headway in with Legian emerging as the place to be and Seminyak the next in line.
A bombing by militant Islamists in the tourist area of Kuta killed 202 people, mostly foreigners.
The Indian Ocean Earthquake brought Bali many tourists who planned to go to Phuket or Maldive.
The American government lifted its travel warnings.
The Australian government still rates it a 4 danger level on a scale of 5.
The Indonesian Tourism Ministry expects more visitors arrivals, whose target for visitor arrivals is aimed to be the highest ever.
Wikipedia
Part II - Statistics
As illustrated in the table, number of foreign passenger arrivals grew at a rate of 8.0% from about 491,000 in 1990 to around 2 million in 2008. Between 1990 and 1997, the compound annual growth rate is 14%. This dramatic growth is due to
Between 2003 and 2007, the number of foreign arrivals to
International visitor arrivals in 2008 hit approximately 2 million, 18.3% higher than in 2007. The growth is mainly due to a variety of promotional activities launched for new markets while maintaining the traditionally strong markets. Even though the number of foreign arrivals was influenced by the financial crisis, the year to date (YTD) August 2009 is still strong as almost 1.5 million, 12.8% higher than YTD August 2008.
Part III - Tourism and Its Impacts on Bali
Here is an interesting article on the impact of tourism on Balinese culture, written by Stephanie A. Thullen. This article is apart of her writing entitled Tourism and its Impacts on the Environment
Tianshu,
ReplyDeleteBased on your research, what do you think might be some good questions to ask our hosts? Thanks,
Alex
I have a question on this topic.
ReplyDeleteI believe most of the wealth that is supporting tourism business especially in Nusa Dua, Seminyak and Ubud are definitely coming externally and given close some of the properties are closely integrated into some of the villages. So how does that affect Balinese?
How did the Balinese react when tourism started? And, what was the reputation of Bali early on.
ReplyDeleteHi Alex,
ReplyDeleteI hope the questions below could be helpful:
1. How was the hotel as an individual influenced by the terrorist attacks in 2002 and 2005? What did the hotel do to survive during those tough periods? What did the hoteliers learned from these?
2. Regarding the travel warnings of foreign government, what could the hotels do?
3. How does the politics of the Indonesia government influence the business of hotels?
Thanks,
Aaron
Hi Ethan,
ReplyDeletePlease see the part 3 of my posting. I just updated it. I hope your question could be solved well in the article.
Thanks,
Aaron
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ReplyDeleteHi Prof,
ReplyDeleteIn the 1930s, anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, and artists Miguel Covarrubias and Walter Spies, and musicologist Colin McPhee created a western image of Bali as "an enchanted land of aesthetes at peace with themselves and nature", and western tourism first developed on the island. (Friend, Theodore "Indonesian destinies" Harvard University Press, 2003 ISBN 0674011376, 9780674011373 Length 628 pages P111)
When the tourism start developing in Bali, most of Balinese did not really welcome the development. However, under the strict control of Sukarno and Suharto government, the tourism developed smoothly without big resistance.
Thanks,
Aaron
Oh, this is quite interesting!!! Can you add some of this into your posting? What did the Balinese do to resist the tourism?
ReplyDeleteI'm curious how many hotels/resorts are there in Bali? What are some of the efforts done by the government to boost tourism in Bali?
ReplyDeleteHi Sun Hwa,
ReplyDeleteBelow is some information I found in our blog. I hope it helps.
Key Statistics
Number of Classified Hotels in Bali: 150
Number of Hotel Rooms in Bali: 20,240
Number of Beds in Hotels in Bali: 33,178
Average Occupancy for 2009: 59.29%
Average Length of Stay for Foreigners: 3.6 Days
Average Length of Stay for Local Tourists: 3.58 Days
Number of Guests staying in classified Hotels per Day: 15,049
The Bali government did their job to keep the tourism environment safe, such as controling the rabies and terrorist activities. And they also do lots of marketing job for the island. One of the latest pieces of news is that the government in Bali is planning to promote Bali on CNN.
Thanks,
Aaron
Hi Prof,
ReplyDeleteI think this is a good question to ask the hosts. Because the resistances are happened very early, it is difficult to find record on the internet. I will pay attention to asking the hosts and residents, and update the post as long as the information is available.
Thanks,
Aaron
It is clearly evident that Bali is going en route of mass toursim with the sudden splurge of tourists from 491,000 tourists in 1990 to around 2 million in 2008.
ReplyDeleteIt is questionable whether this is the right route to go considering that it could have a huge cultural impact on the destination and if it would help create a deeper impact on the tourist's mind about the destination.
An alternative route that could be considered would be to price the destination at a higher rate and hence keep the number of tourists flowing in lesser.This could help preserve the cultural heritage of the detination and would also help promote the destination amongst the right cliche of travellers rather than just bagpackers.
This would also help drive revenues whilst also being able to provide the tourists with an enhanced experience of the destination with upgraded facilities
This is something that the government needs to study deeply before any action could be taken
Refering to Sherri Kimes is question on 18th, I would like to know why would the Balinese resist tourism. It is evident that their economy relies heavily on tourism. I also read that that the best way to win the hearts of a local is too visit their warungs and night markets. It is highly unlikely you would find Balinese people in the resorts or hotels, since simplicity is the essence of Balinese culture.
ReplyDeleteThis would be a very good question to ask Liv, especially since she has also run small hotels in other countries. How can this be done? How has she done it?
ReplyDeleteHi Mehr, I think the reason why Balinese may resist tourism is due to the influence it has on its religion and culture as mentioned in my comments on terrorism. It could also probably be due to the fact that they do not want the place to turn be overly commercialised and lose the original Balinese 'flavour'.
ReplyDeleteThis would be true for any culture in the world. Most people resist development because it dilutes the essence of the place. What makes Bali different. Especially after hearing about the green and sustainibility initiatives, I would suspect that the tourism growth in Bali is far more responsible than most other locations. We must discuss this more with Liv. In a casual conversation at the round table, Liv had mentioned a bit about how she partnered with the locals and involved them in resort operations. She also mentioned a bit about Bali villas were infact second homes for certain tourist who seemed to have found their common ground with the locals.
ReplyDelete