Bali tourist arrivals down 8 percent in May compared to last year

The number of tourists visiting Bali in May saw a decrease of around eight percent compared to the same period last year, data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) revealed yesterday. 

In their latest release, BPS said that there were a total of 485,795 foreign tourists visiting Bali in May, a decrease of 8.08 percent from May 2018, when the number of foreign tourists stood at 528,510. 

Adi Nugroho, who heads the statistics agency’s Bali chapter, said the impact on tourism might have been caused by the trade war between the US and China, as well as the recent surge in domestic airfares. 

“The decrease might have been affected by waning interest in travel among the international community, as a result of the trade war between the US and China. Other than that, domestic airfares in our country are also quite high, and that seems to have had an impact on our tourism,” Adi said, as reported by state news agency Antara. 

Australian tourists made up for more than 20% of foreign tourists visiting Bali in May, followed by Chinese and Indian tourists, who made up around 19% and 7% respectively. 

The most recent data from BPS also showed that Bali’s been receiving more tourists from other parts of the world so far this year when compared to the year before, notably from the United States, Russia and South Korea. 

For example, between January and May 2019, nearly 64,000 Russian tourists visited Bali, compared to only around 56,000 between January and May 2018.