25 September 2020

Indonesian Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy has announced the plan on the tourism recovery program “We Love Bali” to salvage the economy and tourism industry in the Island of the Gods. This campaign is scheduled to be started on October or November 2020.

The main purpose of this program is to test and promote the implementation of CHSE safe travel protocols which include several aspects Cleanliness, Health, Safety and Environment on Bali tourists attractions and hotels. There will be 4000 participants from diverse background including travel bloggers, photographers, influencers, teachers, students, government employees, travel agencies, local tourism groups, millennial communities, and the mass media with ranging aged eighteen-fifty years. Later on, all the participants will be divided into groups, with maximum members of forty people. All participants are obligated to promote the New Era of Bali Tourism across their social media platforms to engage their followers in visiting the island of gods.

The government has invested at least twenty billion IDR for these three days, and two nights campaign; which consists of ten itineraries that have been designed for all groups of participants. Some organizations have been appointed to accommodate all the aspects of this program, PAWIBA will be in charge of transportation, HPI & PHRI will provide accommodation for all the guests. Many art communities selling local products through registered Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) will also be encouraged to join this program. However, only those who have a valid New Era Life Order Certification will be allowed to participate in this “We Love Bali” campaign. “With this program, we are trying to revive the tourism industry in Bali, as there are about 350 tourism industries and 8,000 workers will be involved, as well as SME entrepreneurs,” said Rizky Handayani, the Deputy for Tourism Products and Events Organizer at the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy during a meeting in Denpasar on Tuesday, 22 September 2020.

Though Bali has reopened for domestic tourists since last July, it is still not significantly affected the global economic condition on the island which has been severely damaged by Covid-19 since February 2020. On average, Bali is visited by more than six million foreign tourists and ten million domestic tourists per year. But now, the hotel occupancy rate has dropped even lower than ten per cent for the last three months.

This campaign plan was announced when Indonesia reported 4,634 new coronavirus infections, which pushed the total number to 262,022, with 10,105 of fatalities and 60.064 active cases. While in Bali, there are 119 new coronavirus infections, 8245 in total, with 241 fatalities and 1250 active cases.