Australian tourists to Bali down in 2017, but Chinese tourists were way up

The amount of Australian tourists vacationing in Bali during 2017 shrank 4.21 percent down from the previous year.

Over the course of 2017, a recorded 1.09 million Aussies tourists entered Bali, compared to 1.14 million in 2016.

But regardless, Australia remains the country supplying the second most foreign tourists to Bali, after China, according to Adi Nugrhoho, head of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

“Although the amount of people from the ‘Kangaroo Country’ to Bali was reduced, it still ranked second most in supplying tourists to the island after China,” Nugroho said on Monday, as quoted by Antara.

The decline in Aussie visitors is no doubt partly connected to the spike in activity of Bali’s Mount Agung volcano, which especially disrupted travelers’ plans in November to December 2017. However, even before Agung started acting up, there seemed to be a trend in declining Australian tourist numbers.

The amount of Chinese tourists, on the other hand, drastically increased in 2017, up by 15.62 percent from 2016.

A total of 5.69 million foreign tourists visited Bali over the past year, with Chinese tourists making up a whopping 19.22 percent of Bali’s total foreign arrivals in 2017.

After China and Australia, the eight other countries in the top 10 biggest suppliers of foreign tourists to Bali were Malaysia, India, Japan, UK, US, France, Germany, and South Korea.

Meanwhile, the Badung Regency Secretary Wayan Adi Arnawa says that his office has been collaborating with the travel platform startup, Travlr Australia to promote tourism to Bali through the Bali Bible following Mount Agung’s negative impact on the tourism industry.

“Through this effort, it is expected that the development of tourism in Bali can run smoothly and visits from tourists, both domestic and foreign, can continue to increase,” Arnawa said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that 5.69 million Chinese tourists visited Bali over the course of 2017. That figure actually refers to all foreign arrivals. We apologize for the error and would like to thank a reader for pointing out the mistake.