Tourism and Hospitality in Bali and Beyond

Tourism and hospitality in Bali and beyond is no longer a secret for the entire world. This heavenly island has so many things to offer in tourism sectors, from the white sandy beautiful beaches, underwater colorful coral reefs, playful waves for surfing, peaceful lake in surrounded by the majestic mountain, glamorous night life, relaxing world-class spa, international festivals, and many more. While sincere smiles are on the face of people dressed in traditional clothes praying in the temple, you know that hospitality serves as the best asset of this Island of Gods.

Both Bali Island’s potential and hospitality have attracted many people to come to Bali, for whatever reasons they have. For some people, taking a short break for a vacation to Bali is more than rewarding. Some other people seriously consider moving to live in Bali in order to earn a living from this island, and enjoy the tropical life of paradise at the same time. While the rest of the people might be seeing it as a huge opportunity to provide the island with some assets that can grant them some profits in return.

That trend in Bali tourism industry has led to massive growth in tourism and hospitality sectors, including accommodation and property, to keep up with the demand. Comparing the number of accommodations in some online accommodation sites, such as Agoda.com, booking.com, or AirBNB, we can see it has the gradual and significant hike, which is actually on the same track of the number of properties advertised in either printed or online media, for both domestic and international market. While the world-wide economic condition is not providing stable foundation for stocks and foreign exchange investments, investors from most parts of the world prefer come to Asia, including Bali, to ‘protect’ their money in the form of property investments.

However, this enormous development has been disproportionately concentrated in Southern part of Bali, such as Kuta, Seminyak, Canggu, Nusa Dua, Jimbaran, till Sanur and Ubud, which creates such a big gap in terms of land prices between these areas and other areas in Bali. It has caused inequality not only economically and sociologically, but also environmentally. Moreover during high season, we can see a lot of traffic, pollution, and other impacts on the society in crowded area, which we should actually pay attention to in order to keep it balance between the tourism and its overall benefits to the island and its people.

Finally, finding a totally perfect solution might sound impossible. What we can do as the society is to obey the rules and minimize the impacts as best as we can. Contributing to the island can be done personally, from the very little thing. For us, ‘We Care. We Share’ programme is something real we can do. It is a social initiative created to help poor villages and the less fortunate in the more remote areas of Bali, also to provide direct food aid, education, infrastructure and disaster issue, and we help to develop self sufficiency, and run eco-tourism principle into our business foundation.