Bali Care / Bali Tourism Blog

Economists will definitely confirm that it is real. There are a lot of evidences to look around, from the downfall of financial and automotive giants in the US to the urge of Indonesian government to flow fiscal stimulus. Fortunately in Bali where I life and make a living, I do not see it impacts both in my daily life as well as in the business I am in.

I may be wrong. This is a rough conclusion from what I have seen through my own eyes. And my eyes could be wrong. I fact I am very dependant to a cylindrical glass. Well, I do not want to mislead people. Quite contrary, I want to encourage people to look into things from the positive sides, at at least if it is at all negative, to find a way to turn it around.

I guess my lifestyle helps has saved me from the impact of global financial crisis. With almost everything I consume, from meals to clothing and even vehicle, is locally produced, I can afford anything I need the same way as two years ago. Few things like gadgets and computers did not bite quite an attention as I do not buying these stuffs everyday.

Running a holiday rental business I found that closing to peak holiday season coming between July and September, my salespersons are crying for supplies. Inquiries are flowing in whilst supplies are no longer exist. All villas in Bali are booked out during the period. Supply for Christmas - New Year period which is still a half year ahead starts to run out as well.

It is definitely not a picture of myself alone, I believe. My fellows in the same business confirmed similar situation. Bali tours are foreseeing similar picture. I believe the whole tourism industry in Bali is not really affected by global economic crisis. Officials announced that number of tourist visits recorded a slight increase in the first four months of 2009 compared to the same period of previous year.

Thank God that I life in Bali. It is a real paradise, I think. More than beautiful beach and sunshine along the year, it protects from the harm, even the one flow from the most powerful country.

In search of expansion beyond Bali as its initial market, Bali based holiday rental agency Private Leisure International (PLI) has started to expand its outreach toward the region by bringing villas in Phuket and Koh Samui into its portfolio. After two years it has recorded quite a significant success by gaining trusts from a handful owners of Phuket’s most luxurious holiday homes including those located in prestigious estates such as The Samsara, Ayara, and Laem Son.

To strengthen its market positioning in Phuket, the board of PLI invited the board of DwiBali to join their business trip to Phuket. Having the collaboration based on friendship, the trip was designed to combine leisure in addition to business objectives. “We are in leisure business so it makes sense to give ourselves chances to enjoy what we are offering,” said Wisna Wedhana, the Managing Partner of PLI.

The journey started from Penang, Malaysian tiny island which combines industry, European heritage, tropical beaches in a very nice package. Whilst both PLIs and DwiBalis agreed that Penang was not the right place for their business, they had all the reasons to agree that they were having a good time before hading up for a heart pumping action of F1 drivers in Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang.

Their program in Phuket was led by PLI’s Phuket representative Chatrudee Chookeaw, a young energetic holiday property veteran who joined PLI since the first time it entered Phuket. From the picturesque Baan Talaefun where they stayed, site inspections and meetings were planned, executed, and evaluated. In addition to courtesy meetings with owners and representatives of luxury villas which have so far been happy clients of PLI, the program was also directed to acquiring newcomers into portfolio, especially low to mid end ones to fill the needs of their prospective clients.

“It is a potential market and we are keen to start joining PLI to expand our own business portfolio”, said Denny Widhana, the Director of DwiBali in their evaluation discussion in Singapore. At the end both PLI and DwiBali were looking toward a closer cooperation to strengthen market positioning in Phuket.

In last of March 2009, we will find three big ceremonies for Balinese. First is Galungan, second is Nyepi and then Kuningan. Usually, Galungan and Kuningan will be celebrate every 6 month, where Kuningan will celebrate ten days after Galungan Day.

Little different with both ceremonies above, Nyepi Day or many people known as Silent Day will be celebrate once a year. But in this year, three ceremonies above will be celebrate in two weeks. Many peoples have enthusiastic to celebrate ceremonies in this year, but we will not find Ogoh-ogoh (giant puppet) on Pengerupukan day (day before Nyepi), it caused in this period Indonesia will hold election.

Happy Galungan, Kuningan, and Nyepi Day !

Photo by Ramayadi

As the peak season across Christmas and New Year holiday period, Bali fell into low season. Whist it is a normal cycle that starting mid of January Bali tourism enters the lowest business pace, this particular low season attracts significant worries of many tourism business players in Bali, especially related to the global financial crisis with the worst impact affect the main tourist originating countries.

There are many logics explaining the cycle actually. “Everybody have just got back home from a Christmas – New Year holidays, so it just does not make any sense to expect the to come now for another holiday,” a simple explanation threw by Gede, a car rental Bali driver who had rare chance to meet his little baby back home as his schedule was completely full from early December through mid of January.

Working for a holiday rental company focusing on up market private accommodation service, Gede was exclusively assigned to families spending their holiday in Seminyak villas. “A number of different clients, but back to back stay period has completely filled up my schedule,” he continued.

With regard to the slow business in the last few weeks Gede did not show any negative expression. “It’s time for me to enjoy my earning from the peak period and spend enough time for my family,” he said. He is quite confident that there is nothing for him to worry about as the holiday rental company has started filling up his schedule starting March onward. The mid season will start as soon as the rainy season ends.

Gede is one of thousands of tour drivers in Bali, a small nut in a huge vehicle of Bali tourism industry. But I guess we have to learn from his optimism. Bali has been seeing worse situation, all of which got through peacefully and ended up in an even stronger business.

Whilst holiday rental has just started its popularity within the last few years, just like the whole Bali tourism industry, holiday rental business has been seeing 2008 as the most successful year in the history. Regardless global financial crisis affecting the main feeding countries of Bali tourism such as USA and Europe, the holiday season at the closing of 2008 has been pleasingly lucrative. Villa rental agencies were busy looking for available villa for their desperate clients wanting to spend their holiday in Bali villas. Demands have been by far exceeded available supply.

As the peak holiday season expired and the last client depart, worries started to arose. A perfect combination of low season and impact of global financial crisis came as a potential threat. “We have to be very careful in controlling our spending as we have to ensure that we have enough to run our business during the slow period,” an owner of a prominent holiday rental agency in Bali said. “We have been seeing Bali tourism survived worse situation, so there is nothing to worry about. Just business as usual,” another one expressed a more optimistic opinion.

I personally have not that much of worries. With price ranging from $500 to over $3,000 per night, target market of villa rental is wealthy business owners and investors. Crisis may force them t reallocate their portfolio or even significantly cut capitalization of their assets, but it will not affect their lifestyle. If Bill Gates lost 5 billion dollars, will he sell his private jet and fly commercial flight instead? Definitely not. There are a lot of executives and professionals are loosing their job and therefore will no longer afford to spend a holiday, but those people are in $100 - $200 resort hotels’ market range.

Nevertheless, I carefully watch the situation in my own company. It is correct that we do not have many in-house clients in January and probably February as well. But those months are in low season anyway. However bookings for the coming months do not show any evidence of financial crisis. From income point of view, January 2009 has been a good month. I believe that other agents were experiencing similar situation.