Bali Governor will request the Indonesian government cut quarantine to just one day amidst the worst country’s reopening Asia has seen.
BPS, a non-departmental government institute of Indonesia in charge of conducting statistical surveys revealed in October that tourist arrivals in Bali had declined by 99.99 percent compared to 2019 when the island recorded 6,275,210 visitors.
Nobody could have predicted that 32 days after the reopening, those disastrous results would be as alarming as they were when the country was fully shut down.
The governor acknowledges the current quarantine policy as the main reason why international tourists have been reluctant to return and plans to lobby the government to address the issue.
“As long as our visitors are fully vaccinated and test negative upon their arrival, I don’t think that quarantine is still necessary. But I’ll propose to the central government to reduce the quarantine time to only 1 day,” he said on Thursday.
The government reopened the provinces of Bali and Riau Islands on Oct. 14, given a decline in coronavirus cases.
Indonesia has said it will consider reopening other tourist destinations to foreign tourists if the number of COVID-19 cases continues its downward trend.
But what the market seems to need is the island to reopen to a bigger number of countries with more flexible entrance restrictions, especially now when neighboring competitors are offering more appealing deals.
Thailand, for instance, has seen an increase in tourist numbers since the country reopened on Nov. 1 with one-day quarantine only.
Since then, the country has welcomed 44,774 international visitors, with 31,666 opting for the new Test and Go scheme, 10,964 under one of the Sandbox schemes, and 2,144 who decided to undergo mandatory hotel quarantine.
Bali, on the other hand, has seen nobody from the 20,000 visitors that were supposed to arrive on the island in November.
“I was informed by Garuda Airlines that Japanese visitors will start coming in November, but I have no idea about their exact dates,” the governor told reporters.