Getting through it together: 2020 was a year everybody prefers to forget and despite a promising start with January foreign arrivals up 17%, arrival numbers crumbled thereafter.

In the 2nd half of 2020, foreign arrivals amassed a total of less than 300 visitors.

On the other hand, domestic arrivals continued regardless of government travelling limitations and mandatory PCR swab tests for departure and arrival permits.

The nation’s hope for recovery is improving with vaccinations that started in February 2021.

Bali Visitor Arrivals

The international arrivals to Bali fell to around 1 million in 2020 but thankfully, the domestic market provided the island the lifeline it sorely needed.

Despite going down 56% YOY it still contributed about 4.5 million arrivals in 2020.

Bali Visitor Arrivals

Source: BPS

The central government issued nationwide large-scale social restrictions in April 2020 after a significant surge of COVID cases in JABODETABEK. No MICE or crowed gatherings were allowed. However domestic travellers continued trickling onto the island despite strict flight and travel restrictions that were applied nationwide.

Due to the complications of air transport, there is an upward trend in sea / land-based arrivals. In 2019, around 47% of domestic visitors arrived at Ngurah Rai airport, while the rest arrived at Gilimanuk port.

Visitor Origin Seaport Vs Airport 2019

The origin of airport arrivals is more equally spread across Java’s provinces compared to seaport arrivals. Coupled with complicated flight processes, the seaport gateway has become more popular since the Trans Java Toll Road was completed, connecting Java end to end (Banten to East Java).

It has shortened travel time significantly and encouraged people from major cities like Surabaya, Semarang and even Jakarta to road trip to Bali.

Visitor Origin Seaport Vs Airport 2019

Source: BPS

As the situation remains unclear in 2021, the domestic market will be the backbone of the island’s tourism and the seaport is likely to become the main gateway for visitors.

Based on the latest domestic market survey done by DISPARDA Bali in 2019, only 52% of people who arrive via seaports stay at star-rated hotels vis a vis 69% of airport arrivals.

Another statistic that illustrates where the greatest damage is likely to be done on Bali’s hotels relates to daily spend of the 2 different groups. Domestic airport visitors spend between Rp 600-800,000 per day, whereas the majority of seaport visitor spend only Rp 200-400,000 per day. A very small 20% spend between Rp 400-600,000 and only 11% more than Rp 1,000,000 per day.

Quarantine hotels

To support government efforts to control the COVID pandemic and to take some pressure off hospitals and emergency care units the government setup 14 hotels as quarantine hotels for mild case COVID patients and arrivals to the island.

There are 2,539 hotel rooms available for the public and 810 hotel rooms for medical workers. The hotels are spread out from Denpasar, Badung, Gianyar, Tabanan, Jembrana, Buleleng, Karangasem to Klungkung.

The overall occupancy for those hotels was still a low 28% but it did provide steady demand during 2020.

Read the full report here