Bali's Love-Hate Relationship With Tourism On Indonesian Island Paradise | Insight | Full Episode

Welcome to Bali As travelers flock back to Bali following the pandemic and record numbers, the impact of over

tourism

is more evident than ever as buildings encroach on Rise fields and rubbish makes its way to The sandy beaches have caused barley to lose its image as a

paradise

. I am very sorry for my grandchildren because they will not have the same experience that I had 50 years ago and how the

island

's dark past relates to its current difficult situation. Bali Indonesia has been called the Island of the Gods The Paradise of the Living Museum, but the

island

's seemingly tranquil atmosphere may be a thing of the past In February 2024, the local government launched a task force to deal with troublesome tourists and locals alike .

Hello Friend how are you? You are not allowed to ride this motorcycle on the beach because you will disturb other people you need. come back and take your motorbike and just walk here on the beach its ok thank you very much story the task force currently employs around 70 officers who are deployed in popular areas like here in changu and the neighboring districts of seak and couta part of their work It is also to ensure that tourists dress appropriately at sacred temples. Bali is the only Hindu enclave in main Muslim Indonesia. A wave of discontent was brewing in this slice of

paradise

last May, then Bali Governor Wan Costa stopped putting a limit on the number of visitors citing misbehaving tourists as the reason for the limit. several incidents did not materialize sins would highlight the problem in 2023 barley deported 340 foreigners, more than 188 people the previous year, mainly from Russia, the United States, Great Britain and Nigeria, their violations included overstaying their time working illegally and exposing themselves in places sacred earlier this year police arrested three Mexicans for an armed robbery that left a Turkish tourist injured last December the attack on beauty salon staff by two tourists over a payment dispute went viral women , a British woman and an American woman, were arrested and then deported in February according to local information.

The police task force is a sign of an island fighting for its status as Indonesia's most popular tourist destination. Perspec tremer is made up of more than 177,000 islands, but of the more than 11 million people who visited the country in 2023, almost half headed to Bali still wants more

tourism

has transformed the economy contributing directly or indirectly to approximately 80% of the economy the pandemic was brutal for the island and cost around 200 trillion rupees or 113 billion US dollars in 2020 now Bley wants to make up for lost time and Tourism revenue in 2022 2.2 million foreign tourists visited the island last year that figure was 5.3 million, exceeding the target of 4.5 million and this year the benchmark has been raised, but the influx of tourists is putting pressure on resources and Bali's image tarnished by Rampant Bali made headlines in December when a traffic jam on the toll road forced people to walk up to 4 kilometers to the airport.

Traffic jams are also a constant on the roads that lead to places of interest. The latest victim of Bali's development dilemma is the town of Changu. Starting in the 1960s, the infamous Couta Beach was one of the first areas to see substantial tourism development in Bali in the following decades as tourism As it grew, development spread north, then towards the sea and now Changu, once a sleepy fishing village surrounded by vant rice dumplings, there are now concrete buildings on every street in Changu. Developers are attracted by relatively low prices. Cheap off the ground here. I was born and raised in Changu Kamaya is also a community leader in his neighborhood as locals reconcile the island's

love

-

hate

relationship

with tourism.

The evolution of Bali. Entering the country's main tourist destination is actually linked to a dark part of Indonesian history. Born in the United States, Rina Ballinger is the co-author of Balan, dance, drama and music. A guide to Bali's performing arts. She first visited the island in 1974 to research Bali. culture Regina fell in

love

with the island when she came here. She was 21, Starry Eyed, but she didn't come here for the exoticism. She came here to do some serious research on dance and theater and their

relationship

to religion. but I was quite young and in those days there was no electricity or telephones, even typewriters were scarce, so it was a very different Bali.

She would return to Bali after completing her studies in the United States, where she met her future husband, Anak aun gedra rankingi. He came from a noble family whom they married in 1986. The couple has two children and three grandchildren. Rina has witnessed the impact of tourism in Bali over the last half century. Actually, she is a double-edged sword if you look at it from an economic point of view. From our point of view, there are many good things in this, but tourism around the world also has the other side of the sword, which is environmental degradation, cultural degradation, tourists come without, in some cases, without even a bit of respect towards the local culture and without understanding the local culture, it is believed that B was inhabited 4,000 years ago, in the 14th century, the Majapahit Hindu Buddhist empire settled on the island and ruled it until the empire fell in 1520 .Bali would become an independent nation of Hindu kingdoms later until it was colonized by the Dutch in 1906, the bones have always been proud of their unique culture that's why people used to come here because of the culture the Dutch would trade barene as. a luxury destination of mystical temples and Patty Fields after independence in 1945.

Bley continued to attract a small number of tourists, but tourism took off in Earnest under the New Order government of the second president of the SAR, which lasted from 1967 to 1998. Tourism, for one activist cynically called the Colony of Bali and Jakarta, grew steadily and in the 1990s the island received more than a million visitors a year. year, but beneath the brilliance of Baliy like an exotic paradise lie the dark islands. The past Dutch conquest of the island in 1906 was bloody in the Puputan War, three local kings and their subjects resorted to mass suicide rather than surrender to the Dutch. 1,500 people died in the 1960s, so the regime purged suspected communists throughout Indonesia.

It was retaliation against the Indonesian Communist Party after a coup attempt in Jakarta in September 1965. Thousands of people were killed in Bali, including G nura Tam's grandfather, who was a teacher at the time. mura is an activist in Tam 65 is a community that preserves the memory of the balls who lost their lives in the Purge now there is a critical examination of Tourism and whether it was unintentionally attacked to the balls during the New Order period As long as there is any type of political unrest anywhere in Indonesia that may affect people in Bali, the government then says oh we need to do a cleanup so that everyone has to put a certain offering in their family temple and we have to do these ceremonies to divert the energy of the people. in something religious andali which is quite easy to do but in some way tourism would bring a positive change to the island in the changing role of women according to Balan Customs women do not have the right to own property, they are excluded from making decisions in the B. deeply patriarchal society that means that when they get married they move into their husband's compound and are kind of a visitor there because then if the husband decides to take a second wife and the first wife doesn't want to accept that they kicked her out and then she can't have, she can't take her children with her, so she doesn't have many options.

That's one of the reasons why I think women really like to work is so they can get out of the house and they can be somewhere where they are more respected, that's a resistance from society, seeing the Balin woman who she is powerful and regaining freedom is not free kadek Sonia pishan is an English teacher at the local university, she writes poems that talk mainly about women Banes if freedom is free I will write freely I will write a poem about a trash woman a woman who knows prison better than prisoners a woman who hangs herself and fails a woman who cries every day and stays strong a woman who is blamed and stays calm a woman who raises a family and learns black magic a woman who does everything and receive nothing what tourism has brought is economic opportunities for women even if women are mostly employed in less skilled jobs I think the positive SES is also positive that many bindi women who work in the tourism industry also they like men and of course it can help them empower the family too and me when people are pessimistic about the voice of women in tourism because they are mostly waitresses and they are domestic workers or they work in ERS.

I'm not thinking that's entirely true because some of the women I know are also managers and directors, yet Kadek wants to help women find opportunities beyond the tourism industry. She is the founder of communitas. mahima an educational and cultural institution that encourages young people to read we must be very careful with the choice of tourism we choose I want to see that people should think that tourism is not the only way to survive or be able to live alive in Bali of course , in Bali maybe 70% or maybe 75 people work in this industry, but you know that's because parents don't educate their children.

There are ways, yes, you can be a teacher, you can be an expert in other fields. Not only in tourism you can be a psychologist, you can be a doctor, you can be anything, but the island itself has no alternatives. What happens when Bali's charm is destroyed by the tourism it brings? These are the Terrace Rise fields in Jati. Loui Central Bali, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is popular with the Fors Jaoui and is protected due to a centuries-old agricultural method known as subac. At the center of subac is the goddess of rice and fertility shrines dedicated to her can be found in rice fields throughout Bali Wan.

Kong brings tourists to Jati Lui at least four times a week. Foreign tourists pay 50,000 rupees or about $3 as an entrance fee. Indonesians pay 15,000 rupees, which is less than the cafes and restaurants around Jati Loui. It is a reminder that even a world heritage site is at risk. of invasion Bali's emerald green rice fields are a marvel of human ingenuity. They are one of the reasons tourists visit the island, but they are disappearing every year. B loses 700 hectares of agricultural land to development in 2020. Bali suffered a shortfall of around 880,000 tonnes. From rice, more than 60% of Bali's groundwater goes to the tourism industry, drying up more than half of the island's rivers and threatening sites like Jati Loui.

Bali's water table, especially in the southern part of the island, has dropped more than 50 m since 2009, according to a study, some farmers find it more lucrative to sell their land to property developers than to make a living in agriculture. Some of the remaining farmers now supplement their income by making handicrafts. Still, Aled founded Mitra Bali in 1993. The company buys and sells their crafts. Bales Artis cas there is a certain irony in Bali being so dependent on tourism that critics say is destroying it, even the much-loved Balinese culture has lost some of its mystique. Bali experienced a cultural renaissance in the late 80s.

Money and interest from tourism meant more funds to maintain. temples and hold traditional ceremonies, some questions about whether the pageantry loses authenticity when it is put on for a show, they are good for tourism because it is a show that started probably in the 90s, maybe or the early 2000s, it is everywhere parts. The people of Bali were doing these huge ceremonies, so what I mean by cultural degradation is that from the tourist side there is very little understanding and from the baloney side is when people say oh what should I see, they will be told that go see these. tourist presentations instead of going to a small food stall, sitting and talking to the locals, having a cup of coffee and learning about their life, so there is no real give and take, so only the tourists come and they .

They're looking, they're taking pictures, it's an Instagram culture, we go and you know, to the beautiful place and now all these places are making Instagram places for tourists and some people come here just to do that, so for the content . Elsewhere, away from the busy beaches, the Tamil lingan lake in central Bali is becoming increasingly popular with tourists. It is formed from an ancient Calra volcano surrounded by dense tropical forests. Putu ardana is a community leader who works with locals to protect the forest, the lake and the The forest helps protect the water resources of theIndigenous communities, who are mostly farmers, grow coffee, oranges and vegetables, but a 1996 Forestry Ministry decree designated parts of the forest as a natural tourism park.

The villages are pressuring the government to hand back management of the forest. For locals to do so, the government has to first recognize indigenous tribes' ancestral rights to the land, as it is concerned about the impact of overtourism. GR R The government has promised a more sustainable vision for B's future, but will the allure of the Tourus dolls prove it? too strong and Lenny pund is a tourism consultant. She teaches balan dances to children in her free time because I really love him. She promotes what she calls the four pillars of tourism, art, culture, tradition and environment.

The reasons why tourists visit Bali in the last two decades. There have been es and flows in the number of tourists from B in October 2002 two bombs killed 202 people in the area of ​​ca Beach was the worst terrorist attack in the history of Indonesia after the number of tourists fell by more than 20% in 2003 The outbreak of s then They also contributed to the decline in 2017, 2018 and 2019, the eruptions of Holy Mount Aong caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights, but the biggest impact would come in 2020, as travel and tourism have been the most affected by the closure of the CO.

Nowhere is this more evident than on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, when the pandemic hit the number of foreign tourists plummeted by more than 80%, more than 20,000 people lost their jobs in the industry Tourism and the local economy contracted by 99.3%; worsened in 2021 when only 51 foreign tourists visited the island, a record low, the pandemic exposed the island's complete dependence on tourism. To be honest they went straight back into tourism and this has happened over and over again and it's like why will we never learn the lessons. That we have to diversify, but what the pandemic offered was perhaps an opportunity to rethink Bali's relationship with tourism In July 2023, outgoing Governor Wan Costa issued a new guideline on Bali's development in the next 100 years The guideline from 2025 to 2125 covers the protection of the culture of nature and the people of Bali for the first time the government recognized the impact of mass tourism in Bali L since February 14 the government has also established a tourist tax of 115,000 rupees or about 9 US dollars.

The proceeds raised are intended to preserve the island. cultural heritage and protect its environment traffic, but pressure from central government and stakeholders to maintain tourism growth is strong In May last year, Governor Costa announced a ban on all activities in 22 of the sacred mountains of B, blaming tourist misconduct, but activities continued and the ban functionally toothless in January this year, a 40 to 75% entertainment tax was met with fierce pushback from the tourism industry. The tax has since been suspended. Will the government's commitment to sustainability hold up when faced with the powerful and wealthy forces of tourism? IND, but until today, personally, I have not heard any strategic plan from the government B.

Where are we going to real quality tourism, quality tourism or still in quantity? Meanwhile, it could be up to local communities to preserve their way of life. This is the traditional Pengle Puran village that attracts up to 5,000 people a day. It is popular with Indonesian tourists who pay an entrance fee of 25,000 rupees per person or $160. The money raised from visitors is used to protect the culture and livelihoods of the 1,200 villages, however the influx of tourists is intrusive. Visitors are allowed into family resorts to look around, buy drinks, snacks and souvenirs, but tourism money has proven useful.

About 3,000 million rupees or about $250,000 were distributed. to villages during pandemic as penglipuran villages resist the temptations of development around them, landscape continues to change, Ministry of Tourism says Bali's future lies in small-scale sustainable initiatives, but as revival Of post-pandemic tourism continues at Full steam ahead, the rush to capitalize on the return of tourist dollars persists for now and we now have a series of developments mainly from Russians and Ukrainians than across the island. I think there are maybe seven or eight with every highway closed with sand, every piece of trash thrown away. the seas and every mosaic above Patty Field feels like the paradise that is B is being lost a little more, but with the growing attention to overtourism, this could be an opportunity for change on the island.

Bali is doomed. I would say that now, Bali is doomed. There is no way these concrete jungles can ever be turned back into rice fields or agricultural land or anything that is evil for us.