A recent article in the Bali Rebound section of the Jakarta Post features comments by Aloysius Purwa, who is the chairman of PATAs (Pacific Asia Travel Association) Bali chapter. Mr Purwa sounds like a tourist industry expert and goes into detail about how the tourist industry is changing in Bali. He talks about how IT or more accurately E-commerce is taking a larger piece of the Bali pie away from more traditional vendors. He says PATA has identified the 4 trends for global travelers which are:
Use of the internet to gather data and make choices creates a tourist who can fully research and design their own trip without a travel agent. This type of tourist is called the FIT (Fully Independent Traveler) market. Who ever thought independent travel would become popular?
Mr. Purwa points out the lack of education, particularly IT training in Bali, which plays out in a lack of IT companies and companies without websites or understanding of the web. Some of the largest hotels in Bali have wi-fi access, including the Westin Resort. Business travelers and IT savvy people really appreciate/need that.
He also points out factors including a shaky banking sector, lack of high speed internet access and relatively high rates for the existing connection as factors delaying companies in Bali from using the internet to do business. In order for Bali to move forward Mr. Purwa says we cannot work alone. The government and businesses should unite and work together to create IT-oriented societies and businesses.
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Nice article Nick,
Does anybody know who can provide broadband access in Bali & their quality & rates?
According to most of the people I talked to in Indonesia, the reasons that many IT companies have not been able to provide broadband services to customers are due to the sketchy regulations in all communication-related-industry investments and the fact that most of the trunk lines are still controlled by PT Telkom. Hope this will change soon. I don’t think finding Indonesians that are IT savy is the problem. I personally know hundreds of of my Indonesian friends who have graduated from IT/computer related programs in both Indonesia and US that are now still waiting for a decent IT job.
There is no cable connection or DSL over here. Just dial-up and antenna job that I have.
Two companies that seem to be good are the one I use, Blueline and GlobalXtreme.
G’Day Nick,
Fair comments by Mr Purwa. I couldn’t count the number of times the Outpost has been ‘down’ or infected, let alone no connection at all!. But it’s still the best place in town!. My opnion only of course.
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Geez mate, I’ve been FIT for as long as I can remember and that was even before the advent of computers!.