Bali tourism tapping into new markets

Bali is perhaps the most complete tourist destination in the world. With 20,000 hotel rooms, restaurants, spas, nightclubs, surfing, diving, island cruising, a mesmerizing landscape and a fascinating culture, what place offers more? This has not gone unnoticed with 2007 seeing a massive increase in tourists from China. Here’s more from the Jakarta Post

Chinese tourists visiting Bali up 131 percent

DENPASAR (Antara): The number of Chinese tourists who visited Bali in the first ten months of 2007 was more than 69,400 or up 131 percent from the same period last year, a tourism operator said.

The figure put China in the sixth place after Japan, Australia, Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia in terms of foreign tourists visiting the resort island, Tjok Gde Agung said Tuesday.

Tjok said he was pleased with the rising number of Chinese tourists visiting Bali and asked the government and tourism operators to work hard to attract more Chinese tourists.

Around 34 million Chinese made overseas trips every year and the figure continued to increase from year to year, he said.

Bali needs the Chinese tourists and hopefully they will find the island to their liking. BaliDiscovery has the stats on tourist arrivals and it is encouraging to the healthy numbers. Another group that is creeping into the Bali tourism radar is the Russian market, with many choosing to export Balinese handicrafts to their homeland.