Bali’s Mt. Agung’s awakening in October last year created doomsday global news headlines. In what had been up to that point, a record setting year, suddenly had hoteliers scrambling to fill rooms and going into damage control.
The Bali Hotel & Hotel Residences Market Update takes a critical look at the trading impact of the event and more importantly takes a pragmatic view of the changing tourism landscape of the Island of the Gods. As China grabs center stage from the legacy Australian core international market, find out what’s inside the bounce back and what to expect in 2018.
And then there were few…
Like the revered Agatha Christie novel ‘And Then There Were None’ where visitors flocked to Soldier Island with such wonder and excitement, Bali entered Q3 2017 on a high as droves of visitors flocked to the Island of the Gods.
Increasing flight connectivity, visa-free policies and toned- down supply growth over the last year led to excellent performance across the market. YTD October 2017 RevPAR performance was up 7% compared to the same time last year, on the back of healthy ADR and occupancy growth.
China took over as the number one foreign feeder market for Bali, surpassing Australia and growing by a whopping 59% per YTD September 2017 figures.
Just when all seems to be fine, alas, nature played a better hand. Mt Agung awoke and rumbled causing concerns and then eventually erupted sending waves of panic across the island and shutting down Ngurah Rai International Airport for a few days. Though the airport has since re-opened and flights have resumed operations (even China flights in early January due to Chinese government travel warnings, PLEASE let this be a lesson to destinations seeking and becoming reliant on one source market!), worried travellers cancelled year-end and New Year trips to Bali.
The media did everything it could to stoke the fear fire, without any intention I’m sure, filling its 24-hour coverage liberally using terms such as mass evacuation, impending eruption, global climate impact etc. As the peak holiday season loomed, Bali was a ghost-town – mirroring Soldier Island – visitors disappeared…
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