Bali’s Tourist Taxi Drivers Are Protesting: Here’s What You Need To Know

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Bali’s tourist taxi drivers are taking part in a series of peaceful protests, calling on the government to step in and help protect their livelihoods.

The Bali Tourism Driver Struggle Forum (FPDP) marched to the Regional People’s Representative Council of Bali (Bali DPRD), the office of the provincial government, to make six very specific demands. 

In this peaceful protest and discussion, hundreds of taxi drivers who are part of the Bali Tourism Driver Struggle Forum met with the Chairman of the Bali DPRD, Dewa Made Mahayadnya, and several other councilors, to discuss their grievances on Monday, 6th January.

The core of the problem? Local taxi drivers are frustrated that online taxi providers are out-competing them in the market. 

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The Bali Tourism Driver Struggle Forum want to see the Bali Provincial Government put a quota on the number of online taxi service providers allowed to be registered in the province, this goes for motorcycle and car taxis.

They are calling for the government to operate stricter regulations when it comes to vehicle rentals for tourists, for both motorcycles and cars. 

The third demand is to create a standardized set of rates for taxis across the board. The fourth was to restrict taxi companies, enabling them to hire drivers only with Balinese ID cards.

The fifth would be to require all tourist transportation vehicles to have local Bali Province license plates. The sixth and final demand was to create a set of standardized criteria for tourist drivers coming to Bali from outside the province. 

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The Bali Tourism Driver Struggle Forum feels that the increasing presence of online taxi providers and drivers, as well as an increasing number of taxi drivers from outside of the province moving to Bali to set up businesses, is creating a disparity in the market.

Tourist trends show that visitors are increasingly likely to book an online taxi while on vacation on the island due to the cost, accessibility, ease of organizing, and safety features offered by the applications.

There is an ongoing tension because local taxi drivers feel that because they pay a village tax and support their communities, and there is a long-standing system within each community regarding taxi operations. 

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Online taxi providers are seen as outsiders who do not fund the upkeep of village roads yet who have access to earn a living from them. Despite interventions from the Ministry of Transportation, confirming that online taxi providers are operating within the law, tensions have prevailed. 

For nearly a decade, there have been growing tensions between local taxi syndicates and online taxi drivers. At the same time, many online taxi drivers are from Bali, just as many are from around Indonesia and have moved to Bali in order to earn a living in the busiest tourism destination in the country. 

The Coordinator for the Bali Tourism Driver Struggle Forum, Made Darmayasa, explained, “We Balinese are required to carry out our obligations, but our rights are being robbed.”

“We carry out religious rituals every day because of our beliefs, but our rights are being robbed, taken by capitalists, liberals with very large capital in Bali.”

The conclusion of the meeting was that existing legislation, already in place to protect local taxi drivers, needs to be brought into effect more strictly, including a series of industry standards. Industry standards that were already outlined by the provincial government back in October 2023.

There will also be an increased ‘supervision’ of online taxi vendors to ensure that fake plates are not being used and that the driver-vehicle registrations are up to date.

Local taxi drivers have been warned not to take the law into their own hands and report any violations to the authorities. 

For tourists in Bali, these demands and updates might not create immediately visible changes, but over time, we may see a shift towards a standardized set of taxi fares that would make it no different to hop in a local taxi vs. calling an online taxi.

As the peaceful protest is now over and the Bali Tourism Driver Struggle Forum has had their demands aired, normal order is set to resume.