On year 2019, there were over 6 million tourists came to Bali for holiday, which has been increasing since the years before. It is no wonder why Bali have so many visitors from all over the world, being one of top destination among travelers. Based on TripAdvisor.com, Bali is the number 1 island in Asia, and rank as number 3 top tourist destination in the world, thus the increasing numbers of visitors from year to year is expected.
However, since the Covid 19 outbreak in early 2020, Bali took a massive hit right on it’s face. Bali economy relies on tourism sector. Bali Island size is 5,780 km2, and it has over 4,300 hotels, according to the government figures, and millions of Balinese people work on Tourism sector. The first 3 months since Covid 19 hit, things still run as normal. Hotel owners and investors thought that the covid 19 will be over in few short months which never happened, causing the businesses in Bali to close one by one. With no flight to Bali from overseas which lead to no tourist coming to Bali, causing no star to five stars hotel in Bali start reducing their workers. Hospitality industry workers were forced to take an unpaid leave until further notice where initially they thought will only be for few short weeks, then weeks turned to months, and months turned to nearly 2 years.
Some hotels with good financial backup managed to keep remaining staffs to work and maintain the hotel working only a couple of days in a week, but more hotels were forced to close down as they cannot cope with the situation. Same thing happened to thousands of restaurants in Bali, Spa, souvenir shops, amusement park etc, they were all forced to close the business.
Legian street that was well known for it’s vibe and non-stop party, were like a ghost town, being dark with no business open, no loud music like it used to, no traffic, nothing. Thousands of people who use to work in Legian and Kuta, were forced to go back to their hometown doing farming just to survive. It was heartbreaking to see how Covid 19 had changed the face of Bali.
In the month of July and December of 2020 and 2021, where usually Bali were over crowded with domestic and international travelers, Bali was not that busy as the years before. There was almost no international tourist at all other than those tourists who had been stuck in Bali since the Covid 19 outbreak in early 2020. There were some small numbers of domestic tourist who made it to Bali for holiday, as it was difficult to get into the island with PCR test must be done for going in and out the island. For international tourist were even more difficult as they must be quarantined for 10 days upon arrival to Bali.
Only May 2022, tourism industry in Bali start showing some new hope. With international flight already been opened, no PCR test and quarantine requirement, has resulted to more visitors to Bali. At the same time on early May 2022 there was a major Indonesian Holiday due to Eid Festival, causing domestic travelers from all over Indonesia rushing to Bali for holiday like lions eating their preys after days of fasting. Bali was crowded, traffic was very bad, hotels and restaurant were full, something that have been absent for almost 2 years are now starting to coming back. Now is May 2022, when we wrote this article, some international tourists were spotted in some popular tourist destination like Kuta and Uluwatu. Bali is expecting more tourist to come in the upcoming months, July, August and September, where usually they were peak season during normal days, summer time in western countries and school holiday in Indonesia. Let’s hope that Bali tourism will be back to normal from this year onwards, to recover the damages that Covid 19 had caused, to get Bali back on it’s feet again, and welcoming the world in the paradise island.
We at Discova Bali encourage Bali Travel to our readers. Help the island and the people to recover, Visit Bali again. Enjoy some of our Bali Vlog for recommendations as to where to go next on your next visits to Bali. Contact us should you need any information about Travelling to Bali.
