(11/6/2011)
The growing number of French tourists to Bali is outpacing the island’s ability to provide a sufficient number of licensed French-speaking guides, according to the chairman of the Bali Guide Association (HPI), Sang Putu Subaya.
According to Subaya: “At this time we are overwhelmed with requests from travel agents for French-speaking guides. This is due to the continuing increase of French tourists to Bali from year-to-year.”
He related that the increase in French visitors to Bali is dominated by individual travelers as opposed to groups, putting an added demand on the services for French-speaking guides. French tourists, moreover, tend to stay a week to ten days. The HPI-Bali currently only has 235 French-speaking registered guides on its registry representing 2% of the 8,198 registered working in Bali.
The HPI estimates that an additional 100 French-speaking guides are needed to meet the current demand for such services.
Through the end of August 2011, French tourist to Bali were up 4.2% year-to-date when compared to arrivals in 2010.
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