Bali Deputy Governor Wants Domestic Aircraft Ticket Prices To Be Controlled: Don't Let Tourists Not Come

DENPASAR - Deputy Governor (Deputy Governor) of Bali Cokorda Oka Artha Ardana Sukawati wants domestic plane ticket prices to be controlled to encourage domestic tourist visits on the Island of the Gods.

"Hopefully it can be controlled, don't go up and down, tourists won't come," said ANTARA, on the sidelines of the Intellectual Property Mobile Service (MPIC), at Renon Field, Denpasar, Bali, reported by ANTARA, Friday, May 26.

According to him, foreign tourist destinations that are competitors in Bali provide incentives in the event of an increase in aircraft ticket prices.

The reason is, the performance of the tourism sector can decrease, one of the biggest components is because the price of transportation tickets is not affordable.

"If the price (of the plane ticket) is not affordable, it is too expensive, our competitors are brave enough to provide incentives for things like that," he also said.

Even so, his party has no plan to request incentives from the central government for plane ticket prices.

"We don't beg that big, but from that price it should not be used as an opportunity. We have certain conditions, there is a threshold, as long as it is still at that threshold, I think it is still normal," he said.

But on the other hand, according to him, the price of plane tickets increases following market law, namely if demand is high, the price will also increase.

Previously, Bali Governor Wayan Koster revealed that the price of aircraft tickets that were still expensive triggered the arrival of domestic tourists on the Island of the Gods had not recovered 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, Bali, Wednesday (24/5).

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 said again, the average number of domestic tourist 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, continued Koster, is approaching the achievement when the situation was normal before the COVID-19 pandemic, which averaged 18 thousand people per day, so it has reached around 70 percent.

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 price of airplane tickets for fat routes, namely Jakarta-Denpasar through one of the online ticket sites accessed Wednesday (24/5), tickets on Wednesday, May 31, 2023 for one trip, for example the lowest price is IDR 1,039,100 for cheap airlines.

Meanwhile, the range for airlines with medium to full services reaches up to a maximum of 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.