Bali Faces Tourism Paradox, Wisman Rises but Hotel Business is Depressed

Deputy Chairman of the General Manager Association of Indonesia Hotels (IHGMA) and member of the Bali Governor's Expert Group on Tourism, Agus Made Yoga Iswara. (Photo: Special)

JAKARTA - The Bali tourism industry faces a paradox amid the growth in tourist visits.

On the one hand, the increase in the number of tourists is one of the indicators of tourism success, but on the other hand, this growth is beginning to put pressure on infrastructure, the environment, and accommodation businesses.

Deputy Chairman of the Indonesia Hotel General Manager Association (IHGMA) and member of the Bali Governor's Expert Group on Tourism, Agus Made Yoga Iswara, assessed that the measure of Bali tourism success is no longer sufficient based on the number of tourists.

According to him, the government needs to start shifting the focus from chasing the volume of visits to creating greater and sustainable economic value.

"The quantitative approach in tourism success is no longer relevant," said Yoga through a written statement received by VOI, Sunday, August 16.

He emphasized that Bali did not need to oppose the concept of quantity tourism and quality tourism.

The main issue is to ensure that tourism destinations, products, services, and governance are able to keep up with the growth of tourists.

According to Yoga, the increase in the number of tourists does not always correlate with the performance of the tourism business, especially the accommodation sector.

He noted that the number of official accommodations in Bali had increased from around 12,000 to 17,000 units. Thus, there are around 5,000 businesses that were not previously officially recorded and then entered the system.

However, there are still around 2,000 accommodation businesses that are not official. About half of them are said to use KBLI Real Estate, but in practice they carry out daily rental activities.

This condition makes the growth in the number of tourists not automatically increase the occupancy rate of hotels. Some of the demand actually flows to accommodations that have not been fully recorded in the official tourism system.

Yoga assessed that the problem showed the importance of tourism data integration. The government needs to have a complete picture of the number of accommodations, patterns of tourist movement, and tourist spending during their stay in Bali.

"What we need to see is how much economic value actually stays in Bali," he said.

According to him, Bali remains one of the national tourism economic engines. Therefore, the central government needs to look at the costs that Bali must bear to maintain the attractiveness of the destination, not just encourage an increase in the number of visits.

Yoga calls culture as capital culture. Although it is not in the form of physical commodities such as mining resources, Bali's cultural wealth is able to create economic activities and generate foreign exchange.

Thus, investment to maintain Bali's culture, environment and infrastructure should be seen as part of national economic investment.

He added that overtourism occurs when the growth of tourists is faster than the capacity of infrastructure.

Canggu, Uluwatu to Nusa Penida are examples of areas that are rapidly developing but facing pressure on their supporting capacity.

Therefore, according to Yoga, Bali's challenge in the future is not just to bring in more tourists.

"The question is how much economic value is left in Bali, who is enjoying this growth, and whether the infrastructure and environment can bear the cost," he said.

If the number of tourists continues to be the main target without improving structural problems, Bali indeed has the potential to record a new record of visits.

However, the record does not necessarily reflect a healthier tourism economic growth.