Bali became a popular tourist destination in the 1970s. Tourism in Bali started off as cultural tourism, where tourists visited Bali to be immersed in its culture and lifestyle and to learn more about its history, architecture and religions. However, it quickly changed to mass tourism, where huge numbers of people started to visit the island at the same time, taking a toll on the island’s resources. Most of the tourism is also concentrated in the southern part of the island, putting more strain on the resources there. The reason for tourism also changed as tourists became less concerned with the culture of the island, and more interested in having a ‘cheap getaway’ during the holidays.
Many people in Asia Pacific are flocking to Bali during the holidays. The pie chart below shows breakdown of the nationalities of tourists who visited Bali in 2013.
Credits: blog.villa-bali.com
It shows that approximately 25% of the 3.27 million tourists who visited Bali in 2013 were Australian, and roughly 40% from other Asian countries such as China, Japan, Malaysia and Korea. The number of tourists have been steadily increasing over the years, from approximately 2.5 million in 2009.
Credits: Statistics of Bali Province
The numbers are still going up, where, as of 2014, 3.76 million tourists visited the island, a 15% increase from the 3.27 million tourists in 2013.
Bali is seen as an attractive holiday location due to its natural landscapes. Research has shown that people have an innate attraction to nature, whereby exposure to nature evokes positive moods and feelings. As Bali is relatively accessible to many people in the Asia Pacific region, it has become the beach holiday destination for many, and is steadily becoming more popular.
In response to this significant increase in visitors, more land and resources are being converted to accommodate to these numbers, which pose problems that this blog will be discussing.
Tourism is also an important source of income for many, government and residents included, therefore, the worrying effects of mass tourism in Bali are not being given enough attention as too much attention is placed on the short-term benefits, and not enough on the long-term costs.
Despite the increasing list of tourism related problems that have begun to plague the island, it is still considered a ‘dream’ destination in Asia compared to other tourist hot spots like Bangkok, Thailand, which have already succumbed to the destruction of mass tourism. However, this title may not last very much longer if nothing is done to solve the many problems that have resulted from mass tourism.