Bali opens to international tourists quarantine free after slow restart

Bali: Tourists have been slow to return to Indonesia's 'Island of the Gods'. Photo / Jeremy Bishop, Unsplash

The Indonesian island of Bali welcomed the first quarantine-free international tourists this week.

The resort island for which International tourism has been a mainstay relaxed border requirements on Monday, as part of a general opening up of the Indonesian islands.

A popular destination for surfers, devotees of natural beauty and spiritual tourists of the Eat Pray Love school, prior to the pandemic Bali saw 300,000 visitors a month. Around 7,000 from New Zealand.

While the island opened its borders to international visitors from October last year, most visitors were put off by a mandatory 3-day stay in quarantine.

Following a similar tourism restart plan to other Southeast Asian destinations, like Thailand and the Philippines - vaccinated tourists can now skip that managed isolation period.

Both tourists and the island's flagging tourism industry have been encouraged by the opening of borders. However, it may be a slow rebuild.

On Monday, Bali saw just 7 new passengers arrive on foreign passports.

The Balinese government confirmed that it issued seven entry permits to visitors from Visa on Arrival countries, in a statement to English language website Coconuts.

"As of [yesterday] there were seven foreigners who received visas on arrival. One person was a passenger of SQ938 [Singapore Airlines] flight and six others were passengers of TR288 flight [Scoot Tiger]," said the head of the Bali office of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, Jamaruli Manihuruk.

This number does not account for international visitors on other visas, but it will take a long time for the number of arrivals to return to pre 2020 levels.

The head of Bali Tourism Agency has put the current number of foreign tourists arriving as 2,000 over the past month.

New Zealand and Australia are among the 23 countries from which vaccinated tourists are eligible to enter the country under the visa waiver system. However, direct flights are yet to resume.

Jetstar has said that direct flights to Bali Denpasar will resume next Monday.

"From 14 March, Jetstar will operate three-weekly Bali services from Melbourne, marking the first time Jetstar has flown to Bali since flights were grounded on 26 March, 2020."
Qantas says their 787s will return from Sydney, as of 28 March.

New Zealanders will have to wait a little longer for flights to the Isle of the Gods.

Emirates which flew a direct seasonal link from Auckland to Bali said the sevice is "among the many routes that remain suspended due to ongoing impacts related to the COVID-19 pandemic."

A spokesperson for Air New Zealand said it is looking to resume seasonal services to Bali in 2023.