President Joko Widodo credited Bali’s high vaccination rate,
and the country’s COVID-19 caseload has also declined considerably. Indonesia
has had around 1,000 cases a day in the past week after peaking around 56,000
daily in July.
Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport will welcome new
foreign arrivals from 19 countries that met World Health Organization’s
criteria such as having their COVID-19 cases under control, Luhut Binsar
Pandjaitan, the government minister who leads the COVID-19 response in Java and
Bali, said in a statement late Wednesday.
He said all international flight passengers must have proof
they’ve been vaccinated two times, test negative for the coronavirus upon
arrival in Bali and undergo a 5-day quarantine at designated hotels at their
own expense. They’ll also have to follow stringent rules at hotels, in
restaurants and on beaches.
“We have to do this with caution because we need to stay
alert,” Pandjaitan said.
Tourism is the main source of income on the idyllic “island
of the gods” that is home to more than 4 million people, who are mainly Hindu
in the mostly Muslim archipelago nation. Bali’s tourist areas were deserted two
decades ago after visitors were scared off by deadly terror attacks that
targeted foreigners, but the island has worked to overcome that image.
More than 6 million foreigners arrived in Bali each year
prior to the pandemic.
Foreign tourist arrivals dropped six-fold from 6.2 million
in 2019 to only 1 million in 2020, while 92,000 people employed in tourism lost
their jobs and the average room occupancy rate of classified hotels in Bali was
below 20%. Statistics Indonesia data showed the island’s economy contracted 9.31%
year-on-year last year.
After closing the island to all visitors early in the
pandemic, Bali reopened to Indonesians from other parts of the country in the
middle of last year. That helped the island’s gross domestic product grow a
modest 2.83% in the second quarter this year, ending five consecutive quarters
of contraction.
The July surge, fueled by the delta variant, again totally
emptied the island’s normally bustling beaches and streets. Authorities
restricted public activities, closed the airport and shuttered all shops, bars,
sit-down restaurants, tourist attraction spots and many other places on the
island. It reopened to domestic travelers in August.
Sang Putu Wibawa, the general manager at Bali’s Tandjung
Sari Hotel, said only two of its 40 rooms were occupied on average and he hoped
the reopening would help the occupancy rate back to normal.
“We have been waiting for this moment for so long,” he said.
“This outbreak has hammered the local economy … we are very excited to welcome
foreign guests by observing health protocols.”
Widodo said deciding to reopen Bali was based on its high
vaccination rate as well as wanting to revive its economy. He said more than
80% of the Bali population has been fully vaccinated.
“Based on this situation, I am optimistic and we have
decided to reopen international flights to Bali,” Widodo wrote in his official
Instagram on Saturday.
Overall, 59.4 million of Indonesia’s 270 million people are
fully vaccinated and another 43.2 million are partially vaccinated. Indonesia
has confirmed more than 4.2 million cases and 142,811 deaths from COVID-19, the
most in Southeast Asia.
Tourists from 19 countries are now able to visit the Bali
and Riau islands provinces — Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, New Zealand,
Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Liechtenstein, Italy,
France, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, and Norway.
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