February 7, 2025
JAKARTA – The efforts to curb unchecked development and overtourism in Bali deserve our support and recognition. However, we are calling on the authorities to be consistent with their law enforcement, to do away with reactive, or even worse, discriminatory, measures.
Last month, the Bali Police arrested a German national as part of an operation to permanently shut down PARQ Ubud, a hotel compound in Gianyar regency, with the Bali Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) raiding the complex after finding that it was in violation of licensing and development regulations.
The police said the 65,000-square-meter compound was built on top of protected rice fields categorized as National Sustainable Agricultural Land (LP2B), and contributed to “a reduction in Bali’s agricultural land”.
Before its closure, the property had evolved into a “multifunctional center” featuring apartment-style rooms, restaurants, shops, a luxury spa, coworking spaces, a fitness center, a concert hall and an 80-meter swimming pool, the largest in Ubud. The hotel compound was also known as a place in which foreign tourists could stay for months.
Nearby residents referred to the property as the “Russian Village” because of perceptions that Russians made up the majority of the clientele.
Foreign arrivals in Bali have surged since the resort island reopened after COVID-19. Data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS) show that 5.2 million foreign visitors arrived on the island from January to October last year, accounting for 45 percent of Indonesia’s total foreign arrivals for the same period.
To the surprise of no one, overtourism and overdevelopment have become serious issues, especially in the southern part of Bali, leading to environmental issues such as flooding and mounting waste.
Several tourism associations in Bali have raised concerns over a plethora of problems that have been haunting the popular resort island in recent years.
In January, monsoon rains brought what an activist described as “the worst” waves of plastic waste to hit its tourist-favored beaches.
A 2019 study revealed that Bali generates 1.6 million tonnes of trash per year with around 303,000 tonnes of plastic waste. However, only some 48 percent of Bali’s waste is responsibly managed either through recycling or landfill. A significant portion of collected waste never reaches a recycling facility or any of Bali’s 10 official landfills, leading to 33,000 tonnes of plastic leaking into waterways every year.
We have been warned that focusing solely on the massive influx of people overlooks the complexity of how the tourist sector operates.
While we acknowledge that a number of places in our archipelago may in fact be in much need of tourism development, we should focus our critique on not the tourists themselves, but rather the policies implemented at various levels by local governments.
Scholars argue that overtourism can be better described as a complex and deeply entrenched system that prioritizes economic growth through mass tourism and a visitor economy gradually replacing existing economic activities. It results in processes that unleash questionable unfair practices, such as rent expropriation, labor exploitation, indigenous community displacement and expulsion and natural resources extraction.
Outside factors may be playing a not insignificant role in the overtourism, but the beginning to the end of that problem lies largely within. Indonesians are welcoming people, but the authorities need to step up and ensure we are a lawful and sustainable host.