[bali-bali] FW: [balilocal] Stingy Bali Tourists, Or Bali Government?

BALI TIMES
Stingy Bali Tourists, Or Bali Government?
May 09, 2012
By Vyt Karazija

The chairman of Bali's Tourism Board, Ida Bagus Ngurah Wijaya, opened his
mouth wide last Wednesday, and firmly inserted his foot. Annoyed that,
despite a rise in total tourist numbers to Bali, visitors are now staying
for only an average of three or four days instead of the seven days which
was the norm 10 years ago, and spend only US$100 per day instead of $300, he
blamed the tourists.

"Stingy tourists" are overcrowding Bali, he whinged. "When they come, we
have serious problems of traffic and waste. The island becomes dirty," he
said - falling headlong into the time-honoured local practice of blaming
everyone else except yourself. It's a little shocking to see officials -
whose job it is to attract tourists - turn on their target market and accuse
them of not being good little visitors by staying longer and spending more.
It's more than a little disconcerting to see a high-profile public official
actually exhibit the same cargo-cult mentality that pervades many less
sophisticated villagers here. In effect, he is saying: "You have it. We want
it. Give it to us. If you don't, you are a stingy bule."

Well, Ngurah, you might think that, but as the voice of Bali tourism, you
are not supposed to say it, because the backlash from tourists as a result
of your rudeness will only result in a wider public discussion as to the
real reasons that people are deserting Bali. I was a tourist for 12 years
before coming here to live. Now, as a resident for over three years, I have
constant contact with "stingy" tourists, and as a result of their feedback,
I am happy to summarise for you just why this trend is developing.

Look around you, Ngurah - not with the rose-coloured glasses of a local, but
through the eyes of someone arriving in Bali after a long, tiring flight.
What do you see?

You will see tourists paying $25 each for a 30-day visa-on-arrival to enter
the country, and then another $16 each to leave. Family of four coming for
only five days? That's $164 out of the spending budget already, and no way
to save money on a one-week visa, because officialdom has withdrawn the
short-stay visa facility. Visiting Bali on a cruise lay-over for six hours?
That's $25 per person, thanks.

You will see chaos, delays and inefficiency in a hot, overcrowded arrivals
hall, with insufficient staff to handle the passenger load and a confusing
queuing system.

You will see tired visitors being pounced on by "porters" at the baggage
carousel and cajoled into letting them wheel their bags 20 metres to the
customs desk, then stridently demanding $10 for each bag before running off
to scam their next victim, as airport "security" personnel stand by and
grin.

You will see the monopolistic taxi counter "mistakenly" ask for a rate
higher than the official published rates displayed, then see their drivers
try to con their passengers out of another Rp40,000 on arrival at their
hotels and villas with a pathetic sob story, or an insistence that "this is
the rule!" You will see arriving visitors quail as they face the long, long,
crowded walk to their car during the chaotic and visitor-unfriendly airport
reconstruction.

You will see tourists arrive at what are now grossly overpriced and
over-starred hotels, which no longer offer the "book 7, get 10? incentive
packages of past years, only to be told, "Sorry, your room is not ready."
Even Singapore hotels are now cheaper than those in Bali, which is no longer
competitive.

You will see a proliferation of minimarts in garish colours selling
monstrously overpriced items to the hapless tourist. Buy a local magazine
there, published in Bahasa Indonesia, with a printed price of Rp25,000 on
the cover, and you will be charged Rp55,000 when it is scanned. Shrug from
the cashier. "Boss' rules."

You will see tourists being accosted by rude touts, women being physically
manhandled by sellers who refuse to accept a polite refusal to buy their
wares, stallholders muttering thinly veiled abuse at tourists who won't pay
four times the going rate in Bali (and twice the price in their home
country) for their shoddy goods. You will see criminal moneychangers
short-changing gullible tourists every day, and the arrogant taxi mafia (the
non-Blue Bird companies) overcharging customers and threatening real taxi
drivers with violence.

You will see tourists stuck in traffic for hours on Bali's poorly maintained
roads, because no one even considers the gridlocking consequences of
allowing local drivers to park wherever they feel like. You will see
suicidal motorbike riders come close to killing pedestrians with their
brainless antics and causing accidents with cars, after which they shrilly
demand compensation for their own stupidity.

You will see visitors to Bali try to negotiate the open drains with lids
which masquerade as footpaths here, and injure themselves when brittle
manholes collapse beneath them. You will see tourists with infants in
strollers being forced to risk death by having to share the narrow roads
with texting drivers and motorcyclists.

You will see tourists now being expected to pay the same prices as at home
for mediocre Western-style meals, and absolutely exorbitant rates for
imported wine, spirits and food. Spirits in bars are frequently counterfeit
local replacements and deliberate half-shots in mixed drinks are common.
Despite smokers being banned in all restaurants, bars and clubs from the
first of June this year, tourists can expect no relief from the constant
burning of toxic plastic waste all over Bali, the carcinogenic
mosquito-fogging smoke and noise, or from the stinking emissions of the
ubiquitous buses, trucks and illegal 2-stroke motorbikes.

You will see tourists give up on visiting the "cultural epicentre" of Ubud
because of traffic jams and the hundreds of huge buses clogging the town.
You will see them give up on visiting far-flung temples and seeing the
"real" Bali, because it's all too hard, and now too expensive. Eventually,
you will see them avoiding the immense, noisy, polluted construction zone
that is south Bali altogether.

You will see tourists recoil from the stinking piles of garbage on the
beaches, on the streets and in the rivers. Where garbage is collected, it
ends up in makeshift tips anywhere the collectors choose to dump it. Just
have a look at the huge rat- and snake-infested mountain of refuse dumped
opposite villa developments in Legian, just off Jalan Nakula; have a look at
the environmentally disastrous heap of rubbish at the entrance to the
Mangrove Park.

You will see tourists cautious of potentially rabies-infected dogs, scared
of contracting dengue fever from the incessant mosquitoes, wary of getting
Legionnaires disease from poorly maintained air conditioners and amazed that
nothing is being done about electricity outages and Bali's looming water
shortage. They are worried about increasing crime and a police force that
does nothing without money up-front.

And what does the Tourism Board do to make Bali a more attractive
destination for visitors? Nothing. It blames the "stingy tourists." Wow.
What diplomacy; what amazing sensitivity. What a truly stupid, irresponsible
thing to say.

Ida Bagus Ngurah Wijaya, I have news for you. Tourists have been coming to
Bali for decades because it has a special sort of magic. The magic is still
there, but it is now being countered by a not-so-special sort of opportunism
and greed, over-development, collapsing infrastructure and an arrogant
belief that tourists will keep coming, no matter what.

They won't. They have already stopped coming; and those who do still come
are spending less. Tourists are changing the Bali paradigm, not because they
are "stingy," but because they are driven by the concept of value for money.
And frankly, Bali simply does not provide value for money any more.

The question for you, sir, is what will you and your cohorts in government
do to change this?




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