DENPASAR: Tourism expert I Gede Pitana has called on the Bali tourist authority to improve facilities and immigration services to lure more Japanese tourists to the island.

Bali, he said, could only absorb 3.5 percent of the total Japanese outbound tourists, which reaches 18 million annually.

The number of Japanese people traveling to Bali only reached 552,000 per year. Most Japanese tourists spend holidays in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, China and European countries.

“Japan has always been Bali’s most potential market for growth if we can continually improve our services and security,” Pitana said.

Young Japanese people and retired people are potential target markets, he added.

The implementation of Visa on Arrival and Visa on Board systems may attract more tourists, but the systems often did not work properly due to limited human resources and complex bureaucracy at Ngurah Rai Airport. - JP

Source: The Jakarta Post

This is the village of South Kuta, in the Kutuh District on the southern coast of Bali.

Almost fifty percent of residents in this part of the Indonesian island depend on seaweed farming for their livelihood.

The type of seaweed that they cultivate is Eucheuma Cottonii, because it yields a higher value on the market compared to other varieties.

The seaweed can be harvested in 45 days.
Seaweed cultivation depends on the climate and season. Low sea water salinity results in slow growth, causing losses for farmers.

“Seaweed farming really depends on the climate and season… Like now, it’s the rainy season, and because water levels have changed, the salt substance is low, and the seaweed is affected. The harvest normally takes 45 days, but now we wait 50 days to harvest.”

Seaweed farming pays just enough to help the locals send their children to college.

“Education for our children is a priority since we are farmers. In the 1970’s and 80’s, it was rare for children to go to university, but now a lot graduate university because of the success of seaweed cultivation. Now, the minimum education our children get here in Kutuh village is high school.”

The freshly harvested seaweed must first be dried under the sun.

Once dry, the seaweed is ready to be marketed. The price of it ranges from one U.S. dollar to a $1.50 per kilogram. Last year’s prices reached two U.S. dollars per kilogram based on today’s dollar value.

NTD News, Kutuh, Bali

Source: http://english.ntdtv.co

By Luc Citrinot, Etn Senior Editor Asia (in Brunei)

Indonesia can look back with satisfaction to its 2009 tourism performance. According to estimated data from Indonesia Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the world’s largest archipelago was able to attract 6.46 million foreign travelers, compared to 6.43 million a year earlier. The 0.4% plus in arrivals is a turnaround as the Ministry of Tourism still forecast total arrivals to decreasing by 1% to 2% in September 2009.

Looking at results for the first 11 months of 2009, some markets managed last year double-digit growth rates. France was the top performer with total arrivals up by 29.7%, followed by Australia (up by 28.1%), the Middle-East (up by 23.5%), China (up by 19.6%) and Holland (up by 6.3%). Worst performers between January and November 2009 were South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong down in a range of 12% to 25% compared to 2009.

Bali remains once again the star performers among Indonesian destinations. According to international arrivals at Denpasar Airport, the island recorded a plus from 13.6% to 2.16 million. Bali share in total tourist arrivals is up by almost six points, from 32.1% in 2008 to 38% in 2009. Meanwhile, Jakarta and Batam’s market shares in total arrivals declined respectively during the same period from 23.4% to 22.1% and from 16.8% to 14.8%. Other good performing destinations were West Sumatra (+43%), North Sulawesi (+41%) and North Sumatra (+16.3%).

Indonesia expects to reach the seven million tourists mark in 2010 thanks to additional budget and the planned creation of a new body, Indonesian Tourism Promotion Board which will include travel professionals from both public and private sectors.

Source: http://www.eturbonews.com

Source : HVS International

The Bali Hotels Association (BHA) has forecast a 5% to 7% growth for the Bali tourism market on the back of increased flights from KLM and Garuda.

In terms of geographical source of arrivals, BHA expects markets from Europe, Russia, the Middle East and the United States to grow strongly in the second half of 2010.

In addition, BHA has recently launched a marketing programme, ‘Bali is My Life’, which comprises a movie and documentary covering all aspects of Bali for distribution worldwide.

www.hvs.com

Indah Setiawati , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta

Companies that run resorts in the Thousand Islands regency say their businesses are dying because of the small number of visitors to the area.

The problem is caused by a lack of accessibility and promotion, a workshop heard on Tuesday.

Jhonny Lapian of PT Buana Bintang Samudra, the management of Putri Island resort, said the number of visitors to the regency had been declining since 2005, when the tsunami hit Aceh.

“After the tsunami our profits started to decline. And now we are not making profits at all. The major problem is transportation,” he said.

Putri resort now only provides a fast boat on weekends when people come for short vacations, he said.

Providing a boat on weekdays was too costly for the company because it was not getting the 30 passengers necessary to make the trips worthwhile.

Haznil Maulana of PT Pantara Wisata Jaya, the management of Pantara Island resort, said the company now only operated East Pantara Island and had closed its operations on West Pantara Island.

“We closed our business on West Pantara Island because we could not afford its running costs,” he said.

Sahat Sitorus, the head of Thousand Islands’ Tourism Agency, said that previously 11 resorts had operated in the regency. However, when the financial crisis hit Indonesia in 1997-1998, six resorts in the northern part of the regency had closed down because they could no longer afford their running costs, he said.

Sahat acknowledged that transportation had hindered the development of marine tourism on the islands, which comprise resorts and residental islands.

“Tourists who go to residential islands need comfortable and quick boats, while wooden boats that are currently available from Muara Angke are not comfortable, and are slow and lack safety facilities,” he said.

Data from his office shows 141,000 tourists visited the islands last year, 3,316 of whom were from Europe and Asia.

The figure increased slightly from 130,000 tourists in 2008.

Faalah K. Djafar, the president director of PT Seabreez, which manages Bidadari Island, said he hoped Jakarta administration could support the promotion of the Thousand Islands by developing an integrated tourism website for the regency.

Sapta Nirwandar, the Culture and Tourism Ministry’s director general for marketing, said he would do
his best to help promote the Thousand Islands at a number of tourism exhibitions.

He urged Jakarta administration to work on ways to increase the popularity of the regency.

“We have to work on a rescue program. If not, the Thousand Islands will disappear from the Indonesian tourism map and become only residential islands,” he said.

Sapta said the six islands that currently had resorts should immediately be promoted as icons of the regency.

Governor Fauzi Bowo said the city would promote the Thousand Islands regency as a place for
meetings and conferences for companies and organizations. Usually, companies who want to get away from the city for work meetings chose areas in Bogor, West Java, such as Puncak.

Source: The Jakarta Post

Aston International has been awarded contracts to develop and manage two new hotels in Bali under the Aston group’s favehotel brand.

The two new favehotels will be located on Jalan Raya Legian and Bali’s Seminyak on Jalan Petitenget, respectively. Each hotel will have approximately 100 guest rooms.

In addition to the hotels in Bali, the Aston Group is currently developing favehotels in Jakarta, Surabaya and Ambon as well as working on other projects in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Source: www.travelagentcentral.com

Bali by the Numbers: Bali Tourism Estimated to Have Brought 5.48 Million Tourists and Earned US$7.2 Billion in 2009.

During 2009, tourism is estimated to have contributed US$2.7 billion in foreign exchange to Bali’s economy, a figure equal to 42% of the total contribution made by the tourism sector to the national economy.

As reported in Bisnis Indonesia, the head of the Bali Tourism Authority, Bagus Kade Subhiksu, said that the total foreign exchange contribution of tourism for Indonesia in 2009 totaled US$6.5 billion. He went on to explain that the 2,259,000 foreign tourism who came to Bali in 2009 spent an average of US$137.90 per person per day over the average 8.75 average-length-of-stay on the island.

Compared to the previous year, foreign exchange revenues generated by Bali’s tourism sector declined 4%, despite the record number of visitors. In 2008, an estimated US$2.8 billion in foreign exchange was produced by Bali’s foreign visitors. This decrease is linked by officials to a shortening in the average length-of-stay and lower spending levels.

Bali’s 4% decline in foreign exchange earnings compares favorably to nation-wide decrease of 11% decrease in foreign exchange earnings from tourism.

Domestic Tourism

In addition to the US$2.7 billion in foreign exchange for Bali tourism in 2009, domestic visitors to Bali were estimated to have spent Rp. 7 trillion (US$744.7 million), while spending an average 4.2 days in Bali and spending Rp. 516,000 per day. An estimated 3.22 million domestic tourists came to Bali in 2009, representing 58.7% of all tourist visitors to the island.

Subhiksu told the press that he hoped the income earned by tourists visitors to Bali and the fees collected for visa-on-arrival will encourage and justify the central government in providing more funds for the development of Bali’s infrastructure.

Source: www.balidiscovery.com

Jakarta, 14th January 2010 - Aston International has been awarded contracts to develop and manage two new premium select service hotels in Bali under the Aston group’s trendy 2 star favehotel brand.

The two new favehotels will be in privileged locations in the heart of Legian on Jalan Raya Legian and Bali’s fashionable Seminyak on Jalan Petitenget. Each hotel will offer around 100 stylish, comfortable and functional guest rooms at highly competitive room rates. Guests will benefit from the favehotel’s hallmarks such as superior beddings, high speed internet access, LCD televisions and favehotel’s accolade winning interior design.

Aston Internationals Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Mr. Norbert Vas, said “These two new faves will bring the number of favehotels in Bali to three and compliment the already exiting favehotel Denpasar which is currently in its soft opening stage. The two locations in Legian and Seminyak are a perfect match for favehotel which aims to provide budget hotels that surprise and delight and bring style and great design to the otherwise predictable 2 star hotel segment.”

In addition to the hotels in Bali the Aston Groups is currently developing favehotels in Jakarta, Surabaya and Ambon and is envisioning projects in literally every primary and secondary city in Indonesia, Malaysia and the region beyond.

About favehotel

favehotel is a new select service brand established by Aston International, Indonesia’s largest Hotel Group, aiming to offer inexpensive, fresh, attractive and contemporary 2 star hotels to smart budget minded travelers.

Since its inception in July 2009 favehotel has been on the forefront of the budget hotel sector redefining the industry’s standards for select service hotels thru imaginary design, mid market features such as high quality beddings and LCD televisions and a small environmental footprint.

About Aston International

Aston entered the Indonesian market in the late nineties and has an underlying portfolio consisting of 50 properties including hotels, condotels, resorts, serviced apartments and boutique villa resorts, of which 25 are operational and 25 under development due to open between now and 2011.

Aston properties currently operate under the 5 star Grand Aston, 4 star Aston, 3 star Aston City and 2 star fave Hotel brands but the company is also developing Luxury Villa resorts under the Royal Kamuela and Kamuela brands and 3 star hotels under the affordable lifestyle Quest Hotel label.

With a proven track record of success, Aston has a very definitive vision of the future - to be universally recognized as the preferred hospitality management company in Asia Pacific

Source: www.hotelsmag.com

Prior to achieving Certification, The Westin Resort Nusa Dua Bali successfully Benchmarked using the EarthcheckTM tool, against key environmental indicators including energy and water consumption, total waste production and community commitment.

The Westin Resort Nusa Dua Bali chose to demonstrate their commitment to the environment by undertaking Certification – the highest level of the Green Globe programme as managed by EC3 Global. The Certification process involves either an onsite audit or offsite assessment by an EC3 Global approved independent third party Green Globe Auditor. The successful completion of the Certification process demonstrates The Westin Resort Nusa Dua Bali’s strong commitment to the principles of environmental sustainability.

Source: www.etravelblackboardasia.com

OCHO RIOS (JIS):
Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Stakeholders in the tourism sector were yesterday (January 11) educated about tsunami preparedness and management strategies, as the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) staged the first of two earthquake/tsunamis workshops.

The session, held at Gran Bahia Principe Hotel in Runaway Bay, St. Ann, was part of activities by ODPEM to mark Earthquake Awareness Week from January 9 to 15 under the theme: ‘Learn, Plan, Prepare. the next big earthquake could be near.’

“The focus of this first workshop is the tourism sector. We are mindful that a lot of our properties are beachfront and one of the questions that is repeatedly asked is, ‘what of the threat of a tsunami?’ hence the decision to have something for the tourism sector with special emphasis on tsunamis and earthquakes,” explained Training Manager at ODPEM, Cheryl Nichols.

She informed that the other workshop will be held on Thursday (Jan. 14) at the downtown Kingston offices of the Ministry of Health and will target those businesses along the waterfront.

According to Miss Nichols, ODPEM is placing emphasis on preparedness as “we are in what is considered to be a return period for a major earthquake, so we are saying the more you know the better prepared you are for when the next big earthquake occurs.”

She noted that while there is no tsunami warning system in place for Jamaica, persons should be guided by the fact that earthquakes of a particular magnitude could generate a tsunami.

She informed that the region is working on a tsunami warning protocol. “The initial document has been put together and some approval has been given up to the level of CARICOM and we are waiting on that final green light,” she stated.

A tsunami is a large often destructive sea wave produced by a submarine earthquake. On December 26, 2004 a massive tsunami, triggered by a magnitude nine tremor, occurred off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, killing more than 150,000 people in a dozen countries bordering the Indian Ocean.

In the meantime, Ms. Nichols is appealing to Jamaicans to take seriously, the issue of disaster preparedness.

“We must get away from the notion that disaster preparedness is ODPEM’s business only. It is everybody’s business, so if we take individual responsibility, we will be better prepared as a nation collectively,” she argued.

Representative of the Runaway Bay Heart Hotel and Training Institute, Monique Stevens, told JIS News that she benefited tremendously from the training workshop.

“We tend to think that we know all about disaster preparedness at our properties but every time we attend seminars like this we get a little bit more information, so it was very good for me to be here today and of course, we look forward to more of these seminars where we can come and learn a lot,” she said.

Source: http://www.jis.gov.jm