Nusa Dua festival to kick off in low season
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
To attract more tourists to visit the resort island of Bali during what is considered the low season, the government-run Bali Tourism Development Corporation (BTDC) is set to hold a full- blown art, culinary and sports festival in Nusa Dua.
The festival, which runs from Sept. 9 through Sept. 17, will feature an array of art and cultural exhibitions, cultural performances from participating countries such as Singapore, Brazil and India and world-class sporting tournaments, as well as a display of culinary fair, on the resort island's southern tip, Nusa Dua.
Highlights of the festival will be the largest-ever exhibition of tourism-related products that is hoped to encourage more spending from the 20,000 local and foreign tourists who are expected to attend.
There will also be a special traditional parade and an international float parade as well as scores of record-breaking attempts.
In sports, the organizer has arranged several competitions in tourism-related sports such as beach soccer and an international fishing tournament.
Other sporting contests that are hoped to attract more participants and spectators will be the Nusa Dua 10 K, which has been programed to be held annually, and the Wismilak World Tennis Association (WTA) tour, a regular world sport event that has recently been incorporated into the festival.
The festival will also feature some unique competitions such as blanches chess exhibition and a bird-song competition.
The blanches chess exhibition will feature a battle between Indonesian grand master (GM) Utut Adianto and GM Eugene Torre from the Philippines.
Scores of live dancers will bring drama into the game by turning themselves into live chessmen in Balinese traditional costumes, and will make their moves to the accompaniment of traditional musical instruments.
Another sports tournament of interest will be an international lawns bowling championship.
Wine and tea tasting will cap a food festival that will be held on several dates.
The festival will be concluded with a music concert that features local bands such as Lolot, Superman Is Dead and Naif; a rave party on Nusa Dua beach will be the last hurrah.
Nusa Dua festival was first held on a much smaller scale in 1996 to support Bali's positioning as the world's favorite tourist destination.
The 2005 event will be the first with participation from delegates from friendly countries.
The festival now has a more significant role in attracting tourists to the resort island, which was dealt a severe blow from a terrorist attack and the scares from severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and bird flu.
The BTDC president director I Made Mandra said that the festival was held during the low season in an effort to boost the revenue of tourist operators on the resort island and had indeed succeeded in the past in attracting more tourists.
"The festival has made a real difference as the occupancy rates of most hotels reach 80 percent in the low season. It will be difficult to book a hotel for September, so you'd better book now," he said.