Bali Tourism Office Targets USD 2 Million In Visitor Donations In 2023

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Officials from Bali’s Tourism Office have announced a new We Love Bali campaign that they hope will bring in a significant amount of donations from visitors to the island. The infrastructure for the We Love Bali campaign was quietly launched in 2022.

Only now, however, is the Tourism Office promoting the campaign more publicly. Another similar We Love Bali campaign was launched in 2020, with the tourism board inviting content creators to work in partnership with the tourism sector. 

The current We Love Bali campaign was the topic of discussion at a public meeting earlier this month. During a low-key press conference at the Bali Provincial Tourism Office Media Centre, spokespeople for the tourism agency released details of the new fundraising campaign.

The principle of the We Love Bali campaign is to generate donations from tourists to Bali to be used to fund the preservation of Balinese culture and the natural landscape.

Tjok Bagus Pemayun, the Head of the Provincial Tourism Office, headed up the meeting attended by tourism stakeholders, business owners, and the local press.

He started off by saying, “The purpose of gathering tourism industry players is to accelerate the running of the tourist contribution program, especially foreign tourists, in accordance with Regional Regulation No. 1 of 2020 concerning Tourist Contributions and Governor Regulation No. 27 of 2020.”

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He stated that Bali’s economy is heavily reliant on tourism. Unlike other provinces in Bali, there are minimal natural resources in Bali that can be capitalized upon to the same degree as other areas in the country.

Pemayun suggested that this put Bali’s provincial government at an economic disadvantage compared to provinces that have economies boosted by natural resource extraction or even commodities such as palm oil. With this in mind, he stated that the tourism sector must make more of an effort to support the preservation of Bali’s culture and environment. 

The We Love Bali campaign will encourage tourists to make voluntary donations to the provincial tourism office and provincial government to be used to promote the preservation of the local cultural and natural landscape.

Pemayun said, “This is voluntary; there is no element of coercion. Tourists donate directly by scanning the We Love Bali application barcodes that have been provided in hotels, transport cars, tourist attractions, restaurants, and others, throughout Bali, and they just have to transfer the [amount they want to] donate.”

Pemayun and the Provincial Tourism Office have set ambitious targets for the amount of donations they are hoping to collect in the year ahead. Pemayun said, “Our assumption is that this tourist contribution is 5 percent of the target of 4.5 million foreign tourists to Bali, which will be able to contribute as much as Rp 31.5 billion [per annum] Bali in 2023. This is just an assumption that while going on, an evaluation will be carried out per week, including [through] payment gateways.” IDR 31.5 billion is approximately USD 2.07 million. 

The Head of the Tourism Contribution Acceleration Team, I Gusti Agung Rai Suryawijaya, spoke after Pemayun and shared his observations that international tourists to Bali had taken the new campaign as a positive step forward. He said, “They are very enthusiastic about helping as long as their contribution is [used] transparently.”

Suryawijaya continued, “In the four years of leadership of the Governor of Koster, the tourism ecosystem is considered correctly by building connected infrastructure, both land, sea, and air.

In fact, building tourist attractions, such as Turyapada Tower, the Bali Cultural Center, and structuring the Besakih area, to the development plan in Jembrana. This is Governor Koster’s real step to create Bali the Best Destination in the World.”

Yoga Iswara, the Chairman of the Indonesia Hotel Manager Association, has also shared his approval of the We Love Bali donations drive. He said he noted the success of similar initiatives in other world-leading tourism destinations.

He said, “This policy is targeted for tourists who have special emotions, have a special attachment to Bali, provided that the program made from this contribution is carried out transparently. Whether it’s to tourists or the public, I think this will go [well] because many other countries use a system like this. For example, in Maldives, in Japan, and other countries. In Indonesia, now in Bali, it is just starting [promote] voluntary contributions.”

The principle of a voluntary donation scheme will be better received by international tourists than the $10 tourism levy that was proposed in 2019. However, it’s a certainty that many holidaymakers will ask why a further donation is being asked of them when they have already paid for a visa-on-arrival and spent money on hotels, food, transportation, attractions, and tipping staff.