New tourism record for Bali in 2013

BALI – Although the Ministry of Tourism heavily promotes the fact that Indonesia is not only Bali, the “Island of the Gods” continues to remain the country’s largest destination. Last year, Bali welcomed 3,278,697 people, exceeding its own target of 3.1 million travellers fixed by Bali tourism agency. The figure was an increase of 13.37% from the total number of direct foreign tourist arrivals in 2012, which reached 2,892,019. According to the Head of Tourism Bali, 2013 total tourists’ arrivals were higher by 3% compared to the initial target. 
 

The data showed that the highest arrival numbers throughout the year were in August, reaching 309,219 people, followed by September with 305,629 people.
 

Most countries aligned strong growth rates last year, particularly among the top 10 largest inbound countries. The top 10 markets to Bali in 2013 were Australia, China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, France, the UK and the US. India was the fastest growing country with arrivals up by 28.5% to reach 64,579 travellers, compared to 46,632 travellers a year earlier. 
 

Australia was Bali tourism contributor with a market share of 25.2%, or 826,388 visitors. It was followed by China with 387,533 visitors, the equivalent of 11.82% of all arrivals.
 

For the agency, Bali success is due to a successful long-standing effort to improve infrastructure, offering good value for money. Air transport played largely its part. Last year, a long due project for a brand new international air terminal was finally completed, allowing Bali to receive now over 20 million passengers a year. 
 

In April 2012, Denpasar Ngurah Rai Airport was linked non stop to 35 destinations, representing a total capacity of 690,351 seats. In April of last year, Bali international air gateway was still connected non-stop to 35 destinations. However, total air capacity was up to 825,165 available seats during the same month, up by almost 20% over the same period of 2012.

2014 will definitely reach a new record with Bali likely to overpass this year the 3.5 million foreign tourist arrivals departure. In April 2014, according to data from Innovata Flightmaps, Bali was connected to 41 destinations with a total capacity of 910,410 available seats.