Wayan Koster Complains Of Expensive Airplane Tickets, Hambut Recovery Of Tourist Visits In Bali

Bali Governor Wayan Koster assessed that the price of aircraft tickets that were still expensive hampered the recovery of domestic tourist arrivals on the Island of the Gods after being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Investigate a calibaration because flights to Bali are quite expensive, ticket prices and airlines to Bali have not returned to normal as before the pandemic," said Koster when giving a speech at the Indonesian Tuna Conference in Legian, Badung Regency, reported by ANTARA, Wednesday, May 24.

He revealed that the arrival of domestic tourists currently reaches between 12-13 thousand people per day through I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport, Bali.

When compared to the normal situation before the COVID-19 pandemic, he continued, the average number of domestic travelers arrivals reached 25 thousand people per day.

"So it hasn't fully recovered yet, it's only close to 50 percent," he said.

However, Koster detailed the different conditions indicated the arrival of foreign tourists in Bali, which on average per day has reached 15 thousand people.

This figure, he added, was close to the achievement of normal situations before the COVID-19 pandemic, which averaged 18 thousand people per day so that it had reached around 70 percent.

For foreign tourists, the Bali Provincial Government targets tourist arrivals to reach 4.5 million by 2023, or still lower than the 2019 achievement of 6.3 million people.

Meanwhile, based on data from the operator of PT Angkasa Pura I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport, a number of foreign airlines continue to open direct flight services to Bali.

As of May 12, 2023, a total of 29 international flight routes have served direct flights to Bali by 36 airlines.

During January-April 2023, Ngurah Rai Airport has served 3.23 million international passengers and 2.83 million domestic passengers or a total of six million passengers have been served.

Meanwhile, if you look at the ticket price for the airline for the fat route, namely Jakarta-Denpasar through one of the online ticket sites accessed Wednesday (24/5), tickets for departures Thursday, June 1, 2023 for one trip, for example the lowest price reaches IDR 856,695 for low-cost airlines.

Meanwhile, the ticket price range for airlines with medium to full services reaches the range of IDR 1,487,300 to the highest IDR 1,921,100.

The amount of ticket prices also depends on aircraft services, departure hours and certain days, for example when approaching the weekend, the price is adjusted.