Visa policy discourages Bali tourists

The Jakarta Post, Denpasar

The visa-on-arrival policy has discouraged foreigners from traveling to Bali, the country's main tourist destination, a recent survey revealed.

From the responses of 10,000 people, the survey found that more than 50 percent of those interviewed would not return to Bali due to the new policy.

The survey was conducted by the Bali Hotels Association (BHA) in cooperation with the Bali Tourism Board (BTB), in response to the government's request for the tourist industry to provide "real data" on the impact of the new visa policy which began to take effect in February 2004.

The results of the survey were presented on Friday to State Minister of Culture and Tourism Jero Wacik during a meeting of all stakeholders of the Bali tourist industry at the office of Bali Governor I Dewa Made Beratha.

"Bali is the first province in Indonesia to have conducted such a survey," said BTB chairman Putu Agus Antara.

The visa policy restricts visa-free entry to tourists from 21 countries, down from the previous list of 60 countries. It exempts those from nine countries and two regions: Brunei, Chile, Hongkong, Macau, Malaysia, Morocco, Peru, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam.

The three-day visa, for US$10, and 30-day visa, for $25, are issued on arrival to nationals from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

Citizens of countries not on either list must apply for a visa at the Indonesian Embassy in their respective countries.

The government has said that the new policy would have little impact on the country's tourist industry and would generate more income for the state.

For its survey, the BHA distributed questionnaires across 55 star-rated and luxury hotels affiliated with it, to guests as they checked in.

Of 2,119 respondents who completed the questionnaires, 99.6 percent said they required visas to enter Indonesia.

According to the survey, 20 percent of all respondents, including 25 percent of Japanese and 31 percent of Dutch visitors surveyed, said they were disappointment with the lack of efficiency in visa service and processing.

Most tourists visiting Bali are Japanese or Taiwanese.

The survey also noticed that nearly all respondents found airport services discourteous.

Around 20 to 30 percent of them knew nothing of the new visa regulations, while more than half of the Japanese respondents found the airport process confusing,

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs website makes no mention of the new visa policy and still mentions a visa-free short-term visit of up to 60 days.

The survey also discovered that visa processing was time consuming.

Most people applying for visas at embassies abroad said it took them more than one to two full weeks to get a visa. While the set target time for processing visas at the airport is 10 minutes, the average waiting time of those surveyed was 25 minutes. For the Taiwanese, the average waiting time at the airport was 48 minutes.

More than half of the respondents said the procedure would probably deter them from returning to Indonesia.

The findings were announced as Bali's tourist industry recorded a decline in source markets, particularly from Europe and Scandinavia, while, at the same time, Thailand enjoyed an increase.

Thailand received 10 million visitors in 2003, as compared to 4.2 million tourists who visited Indonesia that year.

"Arrival statistics indicate the recovery of tourism in Bali," said BHA chairman Robert Kelsall. "But we are creating a precarious situation, with Bali's source markets becoming more limited as we experience declines in key source markets which historically produced quality visitors who stayed longer and consequently spent more."

Bali was hit by terror attacks in October 2002, which left 202 people dead, at a time when the tourist industry was struggling to regain its footing following the economic crisis at the end of the 1990s.

In its recommendations, the BHA pushed for quick and easy visa processing, particularly for key markets, and the extension of visa-on-arrival facilities to countries that have historically supported Indonesian tourism, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Greece and Austria.