Bali Tourists Invited To Attend Stunning Cultural Festival This Month 

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Tourists in Bali are invited to attend the Ulun Danu Festival, which is happening from the 20th of July to the 17th of August 2024.

The cultural festival will be held in and around the Pura Ulun Danu Beratan Temple Complex in Bedugul, Tabanan Regency, and is free for tourists to enjoy. 

The Pura Ulun Danu Beratan is one of the most famous and spiritually important temples in Bali. The temple itself has become a picture postcard image of Bali, and the festival is highlighting many of the cultural wonders that make the area so unique.

The festival will feature dozens of cultural dances and storytelling performances that are typically not performed on a daily basis.

There is hope that the Ulun Danu Beratan Festival will help attract more visitors to the Bedugul area. 

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The Head of Public Relations for Ulun Danu Beratan, I Made Sukarata, told reporters that the cultural performances on show during the festival include the gebogan, a dance that symbolizes fertility and agricultural abundance.

In terms of agriculture, the Bedugul region is one of the most productive in Bali, with the tropical highlands providing some of the most fertile soil in which to grow coffee, fruit and flowers.

The festival has already started to attract more tourists to the temple, with upwards of 1,300 international tourists visiting every day, along with a further 700 or so domestic tourists too.

The festival is becoming particularly popular with Australian tourists who are keen to learn more about Balinese culture while on vacation. 

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The festival also gets more Balinese youth involved in preserving and conserving local culture. Sukartata said “the participants involved in this cultural parade are mostly young people.

The aim of involving young people is so that alines culture is not eroded. So to maintain it regeneration is needed.”

Participants hail from 18 different villages around the Ulun Danu Beratan area, calling on hyper-local wisdom from each community. 

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As part of the Ulun Danu Festival there will be cultural performances held three times a week, starting at 1pm on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Tourists are welcome to enjoy the festival performances and events at no extra fee. The entry fee to explore Pura Ulun Danu Beratan is IDR 75,000 for international adults and IDR 50,000 for international children. 

It is not only at Pura Ulun Danu Beratan that the Ulun Danu Festival is being celebrated but also at The Blooms Garden. Guests will have access to specialist cultural displays and flower-themed events throughout the festival.

The Blooms Garden will also have a series of Georgian parades throughout the month. The Blooms Garden Marketing Leader, Luh Putu Rice Febrianti, told reporters, “The display of the cultural attractions of the bogan parade itself aims to preserve Balinese culture so that it is not eroded by the progress of the times.”

“With the Ulun Danu Festival, we are targeting an increase in tourist visits by 50 percent.” The gebogan parade at The Blooms Garden will take place every Saturday and Sunday from 1 pm. 

The Ulun Danu Festival is an example of the ways in which leaders in Bali are working to promote more cultural tourism on the island.

As tourism development in the south of Bali focuses increasingly on nighttime entertainment and luxury lifestyle tourism, leaders feel that cultural tourism across lesser-visited areas of the island needs to be promoted more extensively. 

The Chairman of the Bali Tourism Village Communication Forum, Dewi I Made Mendra Astawa, spoke to reporters last month about how inviting tourists to observe more cultural festivals, ceremonies, parades, and events could be the answer to establishing more culturally respectful and sustainable tourism on the island.

Astawa said, “[We must] take advantage of what we have. We can organize an event in a village with a budget and human resources. When it comes to existing religious and traditional activities, all that is needed is the promotional side.”