"We visited Bali in January and were very pleased with the services of Bali Discovery Tours - so much so that we are planning to go back to Bali and would like your help again!"
Bali by the Numbers: October 2004 Direct Foreign Arrivals Near-Record Levels.
Foreign direct arrivals via Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport for October 2004 were only 1.18% behind the October 2000's performance – the highest October in Bali's history for foreign tourist arrivals. In all, 128,399 foreign visitors passed through Bali's airport in October, an improvement of 31.8% for the same month one year ago.
Overall arrivals covering the first 10 months of the year totaled 1,222,113 – setting a new record in foreign direct arrivals and besting by 1.8% the 1,200,404 visitors recorded for January-October 2000.
Bali's numerical success in arrivals, however, has been purchased at a cost in quality of visitors. A dramatic shift from high-spending, long-staying European and American visitors to less lucrative regional tourists has taken place over the past three years. As a result, many hotels and tourist attractions dependent of total guest nights spent by tourists to Bali continue to suffer.
A month by month comparison and accompanying graphic for monthly arrivals January – October 1999-2004 is available for complimentary download via the link provided.
Coming in the next installment of Bali by the Numbers will provide detailed breakdowns of arrivals by nationality.
Discussions Underway to Establish 60 Room Hotel at Bali's International Airport.
Local press reports indicate that discussions are taking place with a local company P.T. Griya Sukses to create a 60-room transit hotel to be located on a third-floor of Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport terminal.
The Hotel would be built on a Build, Operate and Turnover (BOT) basis resulting in eventual complete control and ownership by the Airport Authority at the end of multi-year operating contract. No value for the overall project has been announced.
Officials are hoping the new transit hotel, to be open sometime in 2005, will be of service to passengers required to check out at mid-day from local hotels before catching a late evening flight departing Bali.
PATA-SKAL Bali Ends 2004 With a Ball
Great Food, Music and Prizes Galore as Bali's Travel Industry Celebrates the Festive Season.
SKAL International Bali and the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Bali Chapter are combining efforts to see 2004 off in a joyful fashion: a festively-themed red and green PATA-SKAL Dinner which will feature live entertainment, auctions and lavish door prizes.
The fun gets underway at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, December 10, 2004 at the Nusa Dua Beach Hotel Keraton Ballroom where a lavish buffet menu will be on offer.
More than 40 raffle and lucky draw prizes will be given away, including tickets from Singapore Airlines and Garuda Indonesia, while stays at Phoenix Hotel Singapore and a weekend at Four Seasons are among the top hotel prizes to be won.
The evening's entertainment includes a visit from Santa and Santarina, with special musical performances from a traditional Keroncong Orchestra and the decidedly less sedate Circle Band.
Advance bookings for the evening are required.
PATA and SKAL members pay Rp. 200,000 (approximately US$22) and non-members are Rp. 250,000 (approximately US$28). An additional 5 percent discount is available for bookings of full table of eight.
For Reservations, contact Gede Juwena at ++62-(0)81-2364-9012.
Conrad Bali Hosts Special Dinner Featuring Victoria's Punt Road Vintages Friday, December 10, 2004.
Conrad Bali Resort & Spa will host a special wine-makers dinner on Friday, December 10, 2004 at the Resort's Spice Restaurant featuring the wines of Victoria's Punt Road Winery.
Wines from Punt Road
Located on the banks of Melbourne's Yarra River, the once rural vineyards have managed to become surrounded by the burgeoning suburbs of Victoria's Capital city over the past 100 years. Kate Goodman, chief wine maker at Punt Road is delivering wines increasingly well-known for their consistent quality and excellent value-for-money.
The main range of white wines produced by Kate and her crew include Sauvignon Blancs, Pinto Gras, Chardonnay, and a remarkably mellow Late Harvest Semillon. The vineyard's equally distinguished array of reds include Pinot Noir, Merlot, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Joining the wine maker's dinner will bee Punt Road's wine guru, champion breeder of show chickens, and wine maker par excellent in his own right – Adam Marks.
Mark's ready wit and insights into the art of making award-winning wines will form a lively adjunct to the evening of fine wine and outstanding food.
Exceptional Value
The Punt Road Wine Makers Dinner with Adam Mark includes welcoming cocktails, a fabulous dinner prepared by Chef Gary Rosen, and fine wines. Seating is limited and the cost is only Rp. 690,000 (approximately US$76). Cocktails start at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, December 10, 2005.
Reservations are a "must" and can be made by telephoning ++62-(0)361-778 788 – extension 3 or via the e-mail link provided.
Spend the Night
To permit unrestrained enjoyment of the fine drink and wine on offer and ensure the safety of local diners, the Resort is offering participants the option of spending the evening following the dinner in a Deluxe Ocean Room at a very special price. Dinner participants can spend the night at the Conrad Bali Resort and Spa for only US$98 – including 21% tax and service and breakfast for two on Saturday morning.
Australian Airlines - the budget carrier subsidiary of the Qantas Group, has commenced its twice weekly service between Perth and Bali from December 2, 2004.
Flying Boeing 767-300 aircraft, the airline is selling 542 seats each week from Western Australia operating on Thursdays and Saturdays afternoons over the sector.
The addition of the Perth-Bali flights brings to a total of seven flights operated each week between Australia and Bali by Australian Airlines. In addition to the twice weekly Perth service, the Airline also operates three flights each week from Sydney and two flights from Melbourne to the island of Bali.
Despite being priced competitively with Garuda Indonesia and Air Paradise - the two carriers that dominate the Australia to Bali air cooridors - Australian Airlines insists that are a full-service airline featuring complimentary meals and snacks, Australian wines, spirits and beer as well as in-flight duty free shopping.
In order to meet peak Summer demand Qantas will continue to operate its once-weekly Tuesday flight between Perth and Bali until February 1, 2005, at which time it will withdraw from the service.
Police Cite 5 Hotels for Top Security
Part of Island-Wide Rating System for Security and Safety Standardization.
Among the 53 one, two and three-star hotels operating in Bali, three properties qualified for gold certification under a program by the Island's police to standardize safety and security procedures.
Ranked on their compliance in 7 separate areas of security, the five hotels in the one to three star hotel category who qualified with a 90% plus compliance rating were Ramayana Hotel (92.24), Legian Paradiso (92.07), Keraton Jimbaran Resort (91.54), Emerald Beach Tulamben (90.52), and Puri Santrian (90.45).
In presenting the Gold Awards at a special ceremony on Monday, November 29, 2004, Bali's Assistant Chief of Police, Brigadier General Teguh Sudarsono said that the five hotels who received top honors are offering added value and guaranteed safety to their guests.
Dancing Out of Bali by John Coast
Classic Work of Biography and Travel Reissued After Fifty Years.
The John Coast Foundation for the Performing Arts in Bali have announced the publication of a new edition of Coast's 1954 classic, Dancing Out of Bali. Perhaps one of the six most influential books on Balinese history and culture written by a Westerner, the book has been out of print for half a century.
Dancing Out of Bali is the personal account of a young Englishman, recently freed from a World War II Japanese prison camp, who took part in the revolutionary upheaval that gripped postwar Indonesia and later settled in Bali.
John Coast immersed himself in Balinese music and dance, ultimately realizing his dream of introducing these arts to Western audiences. In 1952, he toured the first troupe of Balinese dancers and musicians ever to play America.
The troupe appeared at the Winter Garden Theatre in London, the Fulton Theatre in New York, and major venues throughout the Continent and North America. Ed Sullivan presented parts of their Bumblebee Dance (commissioned by Coast and performed to this day) and Monkey Dance to television audiences numbering thirty million. The performers, including the beautiful 12-year-old star, Ni Gusti Raka, enjoyed enormous acclaim, and they were feted by such American royalty as Walt Disney, Bob Hope, and Bing Crosby.
A recording of the tour -- out print for 50 years -- will soon be re-released by Arbiter Records.
The tour served to confirm the aesthetic value of these Balinese art forms and to establish Coast himself as a leading international impresario. (He later would present Bob Dylan's first London concert and Ravi Shankar's first appearances in the West.) Further, this pioneering exposure of Balinese arts to the West inspired such European appreciations as Benjamin Britten's "Prince of the Pagodas." And the experience of the Balinese musicians found their expression in dances and music created after their return to Bali.
Dancing Out of Bali relates the remarkable adventure that took John Coast from revolution in Indonesia to the footlights of London and Broadway. It is also a story of life in Bali, of music and dancing in Bali, and of the charm, humor, and ancient values of the Balinese people.
This re-release, issued by Periplus Editions (Tuttle Publishing), features a new foreword by Sir David Attenborough and additional photographs. All royalties from sales of this edition go to the continuance of the performing arts in Bali.
balidiscovery.com thanks Mr. James Murdoch for contributing this review. Recent books by the Bali-based Mr. Murdoch include "Ramli! The Heart of Sutra" a photo-biography of the Malaysian-born Classical Indian Dancer Ramli Ibrahim (Silverfish Books & Sutra, Kuala Lumpur, August 2004) and "Peggy Glanville-Hicks: A Transposed Life" the authoritative biography of one of Australia's most distinguished composers (Pendragon Press, New York, 2003).
Buoyed by Strong Arrival Figure Tourism Officials Increase Arrival Targets for 2005.
Greatly encouraged by Indonesia's strong recovery in direct tourist arrivals, the Minister of Culture and Tourism, Jero Wacik, has revised the targeted 5.3 million visitors predicted for 2005 to an ambitious 6 million.
In increasing the targeted visitors for next year the Minister has also increased the anticipated foreign exchange to be earned by the national tourism sector to US$ 6 billion.
Admitting that al all-out effort will be required to meet the revised tourism goals, the Minister has adopted a dynamic inter-departmental approach to overcoming any obstacles to tourism development involving his counterparts from the Department of Communications, Department of Public Works, Department of Justice and Human Rights (including immigration), Department of Finance, the Ministry for State-Owned Enterprises, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Department of Industry.
By involving all the diverse departments of the Government involved in tourism Minister Wacik hopes to intensify the current momentum to hasten growth in the Nation's tourism industry.
Bali & Beyond's New Look
Monthly Tourism Magazine Re-launches with a New Look and Style.
A familiar friend in a new guise will make its appearance with the December issue of Bali & Beyond - the complimentary tourism magazine distributed to 15,000 readers each month via Bali's star-rated hotel rooms. Now in its fifth year of publication, Bali & Beyond's December issue will appear in a new reader-friendly size, shrinking from its former tabloid format to much handier 27.5 x 20.5 centimeter dimension. While the magazine will still be chock-full of information helpful to Bali's many visitors, readers will also note a number of stylistic improvements in the publication's layout and general presentation.
Founded 5 years ago by a Bali Promo the magazine was eventually acquired by the MRA Media Group - one of Indonesia's leading magazine publishing groups - an empire that includes Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, AutoCar, Motoriders, MTV Trax, Cosmo Girl/Men, FHM, Good Housekeeping, and the leading daily newspaper Suara Pembaruan. The Group also has interests in a nationwide network of Hard Rock Radio Stations and a newly inaugurated television station O-Channel.
Local Air Carriers Now Under Closer Scrutiny
Government Increasing Control and Supervision of Domestic Air Travel Following Fatal Crash of Lion Air Flight in Central Java.
The Indonesian Government has reacted to the crash of the Indonesian budget-carrier Lion Air flight JT583 on November 30, 2004, by increasing its supervision and safety monitoring of all domestic air carriers. That crash, in bad weather of the MD-82 aircraft as it landed at Solo's Adi Sumarmo airport, resulted in the loss of 26 lives and over 100 serious injuries to passengers on a flight originating from Jakarta.
Following the crash, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono immediately ordered a review of safety and procedures in place at all the Nation's airports.
On Friday, December 3, 2004, after meeting with the National Committee for Transportation Safety, Indonesia's Minister of Communications, Hatta Radjasa, mandated an immediate audit and review of all Air Operators Certificates (AOC) - the fundamental operating license held by every commercial air carrier. The Minister, charged with supervising the Nation's air transportation, also promised that plans are now underway for enhanced supervision and training for all air crew, aircraft maintenance teams, and maintenance facilities operating in Indonesia. As a direct result of the Lion Air tragedy, the Minister said the current minimum landing criteria for aircraft flying under inclement weather conditions is already undergoing a top-level review.
Freeze on the Licensing of New Air Carriers
Minister Radjasa has announced that the Government has put a temporary "freeze" on the issuance of any new operating licenses for domestic carriers, wishing instead to focus his Ministry's concentration on enhancing the operations of existing carriers flying Indonesia's skies.
With approximately 20 domestic air carriers now actively operating, the Department of Civil Aviation is reviewing service standards, airworthiness certification, aircraft utilization patterns and a number of other factors affecting flight safety.
The Government has also indicated it would review and consider withdrawing the "dormant" licenses of airlines holding operating permits but not actively involved in scheduled flights, such as Awair and Indonesia Airline.
Erin Brockovich Visits Bali to Clear the Air
Environmental Activist and Subject of Academy Award Film Speaks at Bali Conference.
While many in Bali had seen the movie starring Julia Roberts, those attending a recent environmental congress at the Bali Intercontinental Resort got to meet and hear the real Erin Brockovich.
In Bali for the five day Inter-Governmental Meeting e December 2 – 4, 2004, Ms. Brockovich spoke on behalf of Save The World Air, Inc (SWA) - a company marketing proprietary technologies that can be installed on motor vehicles to reduce harmful emissions, improve fuel efficiency, and/or improve performance. The environmentally active Erin Brockovich – whose environmental activism was immortalized in the Academy Award winning moving staring Julia Roberts, now serves as SWA's Vice-President for Environmental Affairs.
The Bali Meeting - "The Inter-Governmental Working Meeting on a Strategic Plan for Technology
Support and Capacity Building", – was organized by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and included representative of more than 100 nations dealing with environmental initiatives in developing countries.
The Bali meeting is the third in a series of working group meetings convened by the UNEP. Similar meetings were held in New York in June and Kenya in September.
Dynasty Resort Brings Joy to Bali
Joy Gartner Returns to Bali with Top Sales and Marketing Job at Bali Dynasty Resort.
Bali Dynasty Resort have announced the appointment of Joy Gartner, formerly known as Joy Cartwright, to the Director of Sales and Marketing post at the property.
Joy, an Australian citizen with over 20 years sales experience in the hotel industry, has worked at Australia's Hamilton Island, the world's largest Holiday Inn in Beijing, The Crown Plaza Jakarta, The Radisson Jakarta and, in her last Bali position, at Sanur Paradise Plaza Hotel and Suites.
Joy has also held General Manager positions in Queensland, Australia.
Joy replaces Ms. Christine Lindsay who ended her two-year contract with the Resort in late November 2004 and has returned to Australia.
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