Entourage Bali Apologises and Suspends Activities Over Discriminatory Running Event Allegations
Digital nomad community Entourage Bali has apologised and temporarily halted all its activities after being accused of discriminating against local residents. The official statement and clarification were posted on the community’s Instagram account, as seen by detikBali on Friday afternoon (24/7/2026).
“Firstly, we sincerely apologise to anyone who felt offended, as we had absolutely no intention of discriminating against anyone. We are temporarily stopping all current events to take full responsibility, and we promise to make real changes going forward,” Entourage Bali wrote in its official statement.
Entourage acknowledged a system fault in the automatic approval process for entry to the community’s WhatsApp group. The technical error created a bias which resulted in a number of applicants with numbers beginning with +62, or Indonesian nationals, being rejected.
“There was indeed an automated setting error in our system for the WhatsApp group and non-running events. Our intention was to create a gathering space, but instead a bias emerged that wrongly led to some applicants with Indonesian numbers being rejected,” the group said.
The community claims its membership has never been determined by nationality and has always been open to Indonesians. It also explained that some events do carry specific requirements according to their purpose, such as events exclusively for digital nomads or women-only leisure walking activities.
“Digital nomad status is actually not defined by nationality — proof being that our community members come from many countries. Our running club events have also always been open to anyone from the start, with no registration required,” the community’s account managers explained.
They also cited last Wednesday’s (22/7) Silent Disco Run, which required tickets because of limited headphone equipment. The event, which began at 05.30 WITA to avoid traffic, was claimed to have been dominated by local registrants.
“Yesterday’s run was our first ticketed event because the number of listening devices was very limited. Yet of the 94 orders out of 120 tickets sold, participants from Indonesia were in fact the largest group,” Entourage asserted.
According to demographic data from the 94 guests, 22 people, or 23.4 per cent, were Indonesian, followed by Russian nationals at 14.9 per cent and the Anglo group at 12.8 per cent. Other figures included the East Asian group at 6.4 per cent, Korea and South Asia at 5.3 per cent each, with the remaining 20-odd per cent spread across Europe, North Africa and Latin America.
“Our main aim from the start has always been to build an inclusive community and have a positive impact on Bali. As a concrete example, every week we regularly collaborate with local entrepreneurs and charitable organisations,” Entourage Bali concluded in its clarification.