Bali tourism economy dropped 20 percent

By TIN Media | Asean News Published 4 years ago on 20 March 2020
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JAKARTA:

In order to curb the spread of the deadly virus COVID-19,Indonesia will suspend its visa on arrival policy entry for a month starting today. 

This move would essentially shut down the tourism industry, adding the same economic pain that has already hit Rome, Singapore, Barcelona and other tourist destinations.

But the de-facto border closure could turn out to be disastrous for the population of 4.2 million on the Indonesian resort island Bali, where more than three-quarters of the economy has to do with tourism.

Ross Taylor, President of Indonesia Foundation, Melbourne's Monash University think-tank, said, "We are aware with about 80 per cent of Bali's GDP dependent on tourism from our study."

Over the past 15 years, young people have been moving for jobs to tourist areas, while their parents have sold their paddies to developers at the same time.

"There has been this immense change in which almost all the eggs have been put in the turism basket," added Taylor. "It would be devastating to take it away.

Households have some financial protection in most western countries, but most people in Bali are making just a few hundred dollars a month. They are living every day or a month. They're going to get nothing to lose if they lose their jobs.

Bali has been particularly resilient for the last couple of weeks to the global downturn in tourism resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite a ban on visitors who were in China in the past 14 days, international arrivals fell 20 percent last month.


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