Bali’s Hotels And Tourism Development Ban To Be Introduced In October

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Leaders in Indonesia are preparing to introduce new legislation that will ban the development of new hotels, resorts, villas, and some entertainment venues in Bali’s busiest tourism resorts for the next three to five years.

Final drafts have yet to be made public, but leaders have issued new updates regarding when the moratorium will take effect. 

The Indonesian Minister for Tourism and Creative Economies, Sandiaga Uno, has confirmed that the moratorium will be introduced in early October 2024.

The new policy is set to help control the rate of growth in the booming resort areas of the south of Bali, including Canggu and Uluwatu. 

Speaking to reporters at the Bali International Air Show, Minister Uno said, “We have submitted it, waiting for the schedule from the leadership. Hopefully, it will be done soon. The target is to implement it in early October.”

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Minister Uno reiterated that the policy is urgently needed to help reduce the amount of agricultural land that is being turned over into commercial properties, which are largely for use in the tourism sector.

The policy is also anticipated to help directly impact the growing issue of traffic congestion on the island. 

The traffic issues in Bali are widespread and felt by almost all visitors to the island, including the Tourism Minister himself.

He even apologized to event attendees for getting caught in traffic during his visit to Bali.

Minister Uno said, “The urgency [for this initiative] is that it seemed very crowded earlier, even when I came here. Sorry, I was a little late because it was very crowded and very congested. The load was almost at the tipping point.”

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The moratorium is set to be introduced for three to five years, though the Indonesian Minister for Investment and Maritime Affairs, Luhur Binsar Pandjatan, has stated that the policy could be in effect for up to ten years.

In a press statement delivered earlier this month, Minister Pandjaitan said, “We’ll see later. It could be (valid for) five years, it could be ten years. It just depends on the evaluation.”

He wants to ensure that the policy creates a long-term positive impact for Bali and is not a band-aid solution.

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Local residents, community leaders, tourists, and business developers are now waiting with bated breath for the moratorium to be published so as to get a detailed understanding of the scope of the policy that will limit development and the conversion of agricultural landscapes.

It is estimated that Bali is losing an average of 2,000 hectares of prime rice paddies landscape every year; this is in addition to the development of non-rice paddy agricultural plots, coastal landscapes, and existing village common lands.

In statements that first introduced the idea of a moratorium to the public, the Acting Governor of Bali, Sang Made Mahendra Jaya, explained, “The Bali Provincial Government has made a proposal to the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment to implement a moratorium on the construction of hotels, villas, discos, and beach clubs in the Sarbagita area for one to two years, we want to organize it first.” 

The Sarbagita area refers to the main tourism hubs in Denpasar, Badung, Gianyar, and Tabanan, such as Canggu, Seminyak, Legian, Nusa Dua, Sanur, Ubud, Tanah Lot, Kedungu and more.

Acting Governor Jaya has expressed his shock at the rapid development of tourism properties across the central south of Bali and said that so many of these properties are being constructed on newly converted land.

He wants to see a reorganization of the Online Single Submission system so that decisions are granted from within the province, not from authorities outside of the island.

Earlier this week, the Ex-Deputy Governor of Bali and the Head of the Bali Hotels and Restaurants Association, known affectionally as Cok Ace, called for the tourism sector to be assessed by means other than the volume of arrivals.

According to Cok Ace, more is not necessarily better when it comes to tourism in Bali. Bali has been accused of ‘prioritizing growth by any means’, and the negative impacts of this exponential growth are starting to be felt by local communities and tourists too.