Bali reopens to international tourists this week
Vaccinated travellers welcome from Friday
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Andrew Feinberg
White House Correspondent
Popular holiday destination Bali will reopen to international tourists from the end of this week.
The Indonesian island is ready to welcome back fully vaccinated foreign arrivals starting Friday 4 February.
However, travellers will still be required to quarantine for five days.
The move was confirmed by coordinating minister of maritime affairs Luhut Pandjaitan, who said that jabbed visitors from all countries would be allowed in for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
While Bali restarted domestic tourism in mid-2020, international travellers were only allowed admittance from October last year – and even then, only arrivals from 19 nations were permitted.
The UK was not included on this list.
Even when the island, known for its pristine beaches and ancient temples, reopened to select countries, no direct flights were in place, according to Indonesia’s tourism minister.
Singapore Airlines has already confirmed it will restart Bali flights from Singapore from 16 February.
It’s hoped the easing of travel restrictions will give Bali’s blighted tourism industry a much-needed boost.
The island was visited by just 45 foreign tourists in the first 10 months of 2021.
Figures published by the Bali Central Statistics Agency show that most visits to the province took place at the beginning of the year, when the it welcomed 10 tourists in January and another 12 in February.
The quietest months were July, August and September. During this time, Bali welcomed no foreign tourists.
“That is the lowest number of foreign tourist visits we’ve ever recorded,” Nyoman Gede Gunadika, section head of tourism for Bali Province, told CNN.
More than one million foreigners visited Bali in 2020 – most of whom travelled there in the first three months of the year. The total figure was significantly lower than in 2019, when 6.2 million tourists visited the island.
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