So many Chinese tourists visited Bali from January to November 2017 that the amount of Chinese arrivals jumped up by 51.52 percent compared with the same period in 2016, according to stats that have just been made publicly available.
Chinese tourists dominated Bali’s foreign arrivals for the first 11 months of 2017, accounting for more than a quarter of foreign tourists during that period.
A recorded 1.37 million Chinese arrived in Bali on holiday from January to November 2017, which rose by 467,292 from 2016.
“The people of (China) came to Bali mostly through Ngurah Rai Airport, through direct flights, mostly from their country. Only 164 passed through seaport by cruise ship,” head of Central Statistics Agency (BPS) Bali Province Adi Nugroho said in Denpasar on Thursday.
Chinese visitors made up 25.54 percent of Bali’s foreign tourist arrivals, recorded at 5.38 million for the first 11 months of 2017, followed by Australian tourists, who trailed behind, accounting for 18.87 percent of Bali foreign tourists.
The rest of the top 10 countries supplying tourists to Bali in 2017 included: India (4.53 percent); Japan (4.42 percent); UK (4.25 percent); USA (3.30 percent); France (3.17 percent); Germany (3.15 percent); South Korea (3.12 percent); and Malaysia (2.88 percent).
Of the top 10 countries sending tourists to Bali, most experienced a significant increase except Australia (decline of 3.02 percent) and Malaysia (decline of 2.66 percent), Nugroho told Antara Bali.
Increasing direct flight connections and cross-marketing between Indonesia and China are factors to thank for upping the massive volume of Chinese visitors to Bali, says Nugroho.
Meanwhile, on a separate occasion, head of the Badung Regency Tourism Office, I Made Badra, welcomed China’s lifting of a travel warning by the central government, advising Chinese citizens against traveling to Bali because of activity from Mount Agung.
Badra hopes that the revocation of the travel warning will see tourist numbers go up in line with the Chinese New Year holiday, which falls on February 16 this year.
