Bangkok | June 25, 2020 — With only 1,158 confirmed cases and nine fatalities, the popular Indonesian island of Bali has been remarkably successful in containing the COVID-19 outbreak compared with the rest of Indonesia and Southeast Asia as a whole.
Its travel sector, however, has not been spared, with the number of visitors plummeting from the usual hundreds of thousands per month to just 327 in April, according to Norbert Vas, vice president, business development, Archipelago International, Indonesia’s leading hotel group with 156 properties in the country, including 17 on Bali.
With no visitors, whether international or domestic, hotel occupancy levels have declined to around 3–10%, with many properties temporarily closed. The situation has been exacerbated by a pause on domestic travel due to the ongoing confusion on the documents required for air travel.
Chinese travellers will return, just not yet
In light of recent developments, Vas believes international visitors may return from late Q1 next year.
Considering that China accounted for a whopping 19% of overseas tourists to Bali last year, DAC China Digital Services and C9 Hotelworks, a hospitality consultancy, earlier this month conducted a survey to measure Chinese travellers’ sentiment on Bali post-COVID-19. The survey involved 1,041 individuals in the country’s first-tier cities, with 48% of the respondents aged between 20 and 29.
From the survey, it appears that 76% of Chinese travellers are hoping to travel internationally either later this or early next year, with 86% registering an interest in Bali. 24% appear to have visited Bali before. 35% believe Bali is a safer holiday destination than other places.
The primary reasons that draw Chinese visitors to the island are its affordability (48%), fame (29%) and close proximity to China (23%). 32% and 25% are interested in visiting Bali for sightseeing and beach holidays respectively.
47% would like to travel to Bali with their families, while 30% and 17% as a couple and with friends respectively.
Four-star accommodations and three-day stays seem to be the most popular.
How to lure back Chinese travellers
According to the survey, Chinese travellers search for information on Bali on Weibo, WeChat official accounts, and Ctrip. However, Fliggy, an Alibaba-owned online travel agency (OTA), has gained popularity among young independent travellers recently, says Vanessa Zhu, Delivering Asia Communications’s China director. The OTA now has 270 million registered users, with 52% under the age of 30.
Never let a good crisis go to waste
While waiting for international travellers to return to Bali, Vas advises the hospitality sector to undertake back-burnered productive activities, such as revising staff training manuals, revisiting brand standards, deep cleaning, servicing air-conditioning units and repainting, while implementing the CHS (Cleanliness, Health, and Safety) programme.
However, even though travellers are definitely now more concerned for their health and safety, hoteliers must be careful in not turning their properties into unwelcoming, hospital-like ‘clean wards’, Vas warns.
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