Indonesia is moving to ban the building of new hotels, villas and nightclubs in Bali‘s most popular tourist hotspots for at least two years, as part of an attempt to tackle rising overtourism and overdevelopment.
Australians have a long-standing love affair with Bali, with a whopping 1.2 million of us travelling there last year – triple the number of any other nation.
This year has seen unprecedented demand in Bali, with tourism arrivals already exceeding the number for the entirety of 2019 by the middle of the year.
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It has prompted recent moves from local authorities to limit and control the influx of tourists to the island paradise.
In February this year, Bali introduced a new “tourist tax” of 150,000 rupiah (about $15) for all foreign nationals seeking to enter the region.
The proposed moratorium on hotel builds is slated to last two years but could be extended for as much as 10 years.
It would see a hold on new builds of tourist accommodation such as hotels and villas, as well as nightclubs and beach clubs, in Denpasar, Badung, Gianyar, and Tabanan (Sarbagita), Indonesia’s national news agency Antara has reported.
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In announcing the decision, Bali’s interim governor Sang Made Mahendra Jaya hit out at tourists who get drunk on cheap liquor from unlicensed sellers and behave badly in the island paradise.
He said that the proposal had been met positively by the central Indonesian government due to negative posts on social media going viral.
Jaya said the proposal was about developing quality, sustainable tourism in Bali as well as protecting local culture and agriculture production such as rice farming against land conversion.
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