Tourist Arrival in Bali: Present Condition and Projection
Bali province is known as one of tourism destination in Indonesia. There is no doubt if many foreign and domestic tourist come to this province. In fact, this province absorbs half of foreign tourist to Indonesia. It is obvious that tourism sector is the primadona in this province.
Based on the statistic from 1990-2000, foreign tourist who visit Bali grew about 9,93% per year in average. This data shows that generally foreign tourist visit gained a positive year by year, except in year 2001 and 2003 the growth were negative (i.e. -10,6%). Domestic tourist have different characteristic. Before crisis period in Indonesia, the number of domestic tourist visited Bali was approximately 4.18% (based on statistic data 1990-1996). Nevertheless, after crisis period, the number of domestic tourist who visits Bali decreased. However, the number of domestic tourist who visits Bali slowly started to increase and expected to get better for the incoming future.
In Bali, the drop of tourist visit were those from European countries, USA and some from Asia as the psychological impact of both WTC tragedy and USA military aggression. Besides, the USA military aggression was then strongly faced by some people in Indonesia through sweeping against foreigners especially the American. This certainly streaked tourism image of Indonesia including Bali.
The number of tourist visit to Bali in September 2001 dropped 4% compared to similar period of year 2000. Although the cumulative figure for the first 8-month of 2001 increased 7% compared to similar period in former year. This effect was more experienced, as the end years were not a tourism season in Bali. Subsequently, in 2001 number of foreign tourists who visit Bali dropped 4.07% than in 2000.
To anticipate tourist arrival in Bali well prepared infrastructures are very essential. One of them is international airport as the main gate for tourist to Bali.
Based on survey of Angkasa Pura I Jakarta office, Ngurah Rai International Airport has finished expansion phase II. The completion of phase II means the airport may received 9.5 million passenger per year (maximum capacity is estimated to be reached by this year, 2005).
