Archive for June, 2007
5-Day Fun & Cultural Event Planned at Bali’s Sanur Village Community to Coincide With Indonesian National Holidays.
Centered at the Inna Grand Bali Beach Hotel and Segara Beach Hotel the second annual Sanur Village Festival will take place August 15-19, 2007.
Designed to be “bigger and better” than last year’s inaugural event, the Sanur Village Festival 2007 is being organized by the Sanur Development Foundation - an organization comprised of Sanur Village residents and businesses dedicated to promoting and preserving the native charm of Bali’s oldest cultural-tourism destination.
Emphasis on Fun & Culture
In keeping with the tone set at the inaugural event, this year’s Sanur Village Festival will feature a whole range of activities, including: • A cooking competition • Food festival and bazaar • Cultural performances • Cultural parade • DJ parade • Fun bike and city tour • Under water festival • Water sports competition • Traditional boat competition • Surfing and kite surfing• Wind surfing • Kayaking and canoeing • Bonsai and Adenium exhibition • Painting exhibition • Cartoon exhibition • Golf tournament • Rugby tournament • Kite contest • Mass yoga practice• Pillow fights & fun games • Jazz festival
For more information and to learn about sponsorship opportunities visit the [Sanur Village Web Site].
© Bali Discovery Tours.
June 29th, 2007
Expecting Heavy Bookings, Garuda Adds flight to Bali, Lombok and Jeddah.
An extended Indonesian school holiday period between June 15 through July 15, 2007 is expected to see business booming to three destinations – Bali, Lombok and Jeddah (Saudi Arabia).
In order to meet the growing demand for the coming month on these routes Garuda Indonesia is adding 15,406 seats in the form of 15 flights Jakarta-Denpasar, 2 flight Jakarta-Lombok and 20 flights Jakarta-Jeddah.
Anticipating possible service backlogs over the holidays at major destinations served by Garuda Indonesia, special customer-service task forces will be deployed at key airports to efficiently address any problems that might surface during the heavily booked school holiday period.
Meanwhile, the Airline is asking their passengers to book flights as soon as possible, avoid any last-minute change to bookings and ensure the name shown on tickets matches the name shown on their identity papers. To further speed the check-in process, Garuda is asking passengers to utilize city check-in facilities at city sales offices, available anytime 24 hours prior to scheduled flight departure.
© Bali Discovery Tours
June 29th, 2007
The Indonesian Department of Transportation has designated Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport as the nation’s best in terms of safety, security and service. The accolade was bestowed on Ngurah Rai following a recent audit carried out on five leading international major airports in Indonesia.
Ranked in order of their overall safety and service were the following five Indonesian airports:
• Ngurah Rai International Airport – Bali (DPS)
• Soekarno-Hatta International Airport – Jakarta (CGK)
• Juanda International Airport – Surabaya (SUB)
• Polonia International Airport – Medan, Sumatra (MES)
• Hasanudin International Airport – Makassar (UPG).
The Audit carried out between May 3-18, 2007 covered 94 operational areas with 48 dealing with safety, 13 with security and 33 covering service to the public.
While the most recent review gave passing marks to Indonesia’s major air gateways, auditors also highlighted areas requiring upgrades including reporting procedures, hazardous material handling, runway overrun areas, electrical back-up and plane-side facilities. In terms of passenger service, areas marked for additional attention were overall sanitation standards and routine reporting systems.
© Bali Discovery Tours
June 29th, 2007
The visit of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to Bali to formally open the month-long 29th Bali Arts Festival on Saturday, June 16, 2007 [See: 29th Bali Arts Festival] is also being used to launch a “Bali Brand” - the culmination of a six-month long effort to devise an effective marketing identity for the Island’s tourism.
The project, rumored to have been funded by a major national tobacco company, fuels long-thwarted hopes that Bali may slowly be moving towards a more professional and measured approach to the sales and marketing of its tourism products. At the same time, the somewhat closed-door way in which the branding strategy has been created and the guarded way in which it is being unvelied to the President and the world, have some concerned that the new brand, once announced, might join the growing stack of Bali tourism initiatives filed and forgotten under “NATO – No Action Talk Only.”
We’ll leave it to you to decide on the appropriateness of the new “Bali Branding” – details of which we’ll share on balidiscovery.com shortly.
In the meantime, we beg forgiveness if, shell shocked following past tourism marketing initiatives, we offer some pre-emptive cautionary thoughts on the “new” Bali branding campaign:
• Let’s pray that the experts have traveled to Indonesia’s key overseas markets in gathering data and inputs in the process to design a proper brand. The branding of a destination should reflect an objective and realistic assesment of the destination in the eyes of its key customers, as opposed to potentially over-emotive local views of how we want to be seen by our guests.
Good breanding has more to do with what we are and very little to do with what we want to be.
• Any branding program in the absence of a well-funded promotional campaign to secure that brand’s position in the minds of Bali’s key consumers is destined to failure. The harsh reality is that Malaysia would be less than “truly Asia”; there would be nothing “surprising” about Singapore; and we would all be hardly “amazed” by Thailand - if each of those destinations had not spent heavily on international media to establish their brandings.
The prognosis for Bali’s new branding program remain dismal when policymakers, both in Jakarta and Bali, remain steadfast in their refusal to fund tourism promotion on a level equivalent to competing destinations in the region. That this situation is unlike to change anytime soon was proven once again just last week when Indonesian legislators refused to provide requested funding prposals from the Culture and Tourism Minister to finance the launch of “Visit Indonesia Year 2008.”
• And, that Bali Tourism Board (BTB) still remains without a Chief Executive Officer some four months after its latest reorganization suggests those who hope for the imminent emergence of a professional and dynamically managed professional body charged with Bali tourism’s promotion and, by extension, branding the destination may be sorely disappointed.
No matter how brilliantly conceived the new Branding program for Bali proves to be, it is destined to be little more than a self-adoring navel-gazing exercise of little consequence unless its launch includes a sizeable and carefully-managed promotional budget aimed at Bali’s key source markets.
While we coninue to hope for the best and eagerly await the unveiling of Bali’s new branding, we also hear in the distance the echo of the line from Jerry Maquire who screamed: “Show me the money!”
balidiscovery.com
June 28th, 2007
Denpasar (ANTARA News) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, flanked by Bali Governor Dewa Beratha, officially opended the 29th Bali Arts Festival here on Saturday, by striking a wooden drum.
The sound of the wooden drum was immediately followed by traditional music and dances being performed by tens of Balinese artists.
On the occasion, President Yudhoyono also officially launched a new brand of Bali`s tourism promotion.
The opening of the annual arts festival was highlighted with a parade of traditional arts teams coming among other things from China, Japan, and Indonesia`s provinces such as Jakarta, West Sumatra, Riau, Lampung and South Sulawesi.
Copyright © 2007 ANTARA
June 27th, 2007
The 29th Bali Arts Festival, which will open on Saturday, June 16, is expected to be the grandest celebration of the Balinese people’s aesthetic spirit and creativity.
“The fact that the annual festival has entered its 29th year is a clear testimony of the Balinese people’s continuous and passionate romance with arts and culture,” Nyoman Nikanaya said.
As the head of the Bali Culture Office, Nikanaya is the top government official responsible for organizing and managing the month-long festival. It wasn’t an easy task, he conceded.
“When you have to organize hundreds of troupes from different areas and, at the same time, have to deal with various restrictions and limitations imposed by the government’s budget as well as a new, tighter policy on financial monitoring, well, trust me, it is definitely more difficult than what we had to do last year,” he said.
Lamentations aside, this year’s festival will feature a total of 187 events, including 110 performances, six parades and eight competitions, involving over 13,000 performers. It will also feature performances of visiting troupes from 14 provinces, including Jakarta, West Sumatra, East Kalimantan, South Sulawesi and Papua.
“It will be an interesting display of our country’s cultural richness and diversity,” Nikanaya said.
Moreover, 12 foreign troupes — representing Canada, China, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore and the United States — have confirmed their participation in the festival.
To finance the event, the Bali government has allocated Rp 3.8 billion (US$400,000), most of which — around Rp 2.9 billion — has been distributed to the participating troupes.
“Each sekeha (Balinese traditional arts troupe) on average received 6 million rupiah,” said Nikanaya. “For bigger, colossal performances like the Sendratari dance drama, we provided the troupe with a greater sum, somewhere between 30 to 50 million rupiah.”
The remainder of the funds was allocated toward financing the cultural parade for the opening ceremony, which is to take place at the Puputan Margarana square in Renon, South Denpasar.
The square’s towering Bajra Sandhi monument will be the principal backdrop for the parade, which will showcase the best performances from each regency on the island.
“President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and at least eight Cabinet ministers will be present during the ceremony,” Nikanaya said.
Besides officiating the opening of the festival, the president is also slated to launch the island’s new tourism campaign.
The cultural parade will be centered around the festival’s main theme of Sura Dhira Jayeng Rat, or celebration of heroic spirit.
“Generally, heroism is associated with armed struggles — wars and violent conflict. The festival will try to remind the public that there is another kind of hero — artists and performers,” Nikanaya stressed.
Arts and culture form the backbone of Balinese existence, identity and civilization. Without them, the Balinese people would simply cease to exist.
“It is the artists — the dancers, choreographers, musicians, singers, puppeteers — who nurture, preserve and safeguard our cultural heritage, and thus our existence. They are our heroes, Balinese heroes,” he said.
I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar
June 26th, 2007
Bali-based Indonesian photographer Rio Helmi is the son of an Indonesian diplomat and a Turkish mother who, in the course of his Father’s various postings abroad, has lived in Switzerland, Australia and Germany. Infected with wanderlust from his earliest years, Rio has traveled extensively across the world, including a year on a religious sojourn in India before returning to Indonesia and embarking on a career as a professional photographer in Bali in 1978.
Thirty years later, Rio Helmi is one of Asia’s leading photographers with his work featured in numerous books and publications. His photography has been exhibited in Jakarta, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Sydney and from his own gallery in Bali.
City of Angels, Plains of Dust
From June 15, 2007 through September 7, 2007, Jenggala Gallery at the Jenggala Ceramics Studio will feature a solo exhibition of photos by Rio Helmi - “City of Angels, Plains of Dust.”
The images presented were captured while Helmi was on assignment in Thailand for a project dubbed “9 Days in the Kingdom.” Organized by Editions Didier Millet, some 50 of the world’s leading photographers were brought to the Kingdom to capture nine days in the life of that Country from the perspective of different photographers assigned to different locales.
Helmi’s assignment was in Isaan, an extremely poor corner of Thailand. Dry and arid, Isaan is in stark contrast to the Thai nation’s vibrant and colorful capital of Bangkok.
Helmi’s images from Isaan include throbbing discos in the town’s two lonely “high rises,” cartloads of fried insects awaiting diners in the night market, lines of begging monks threading their way silently through the local streets, high incidences of foreign men with local wives, new Japanese luxury cars, sprawling garbage recycling dumps – all existing amidst fields of dusty crops, emaciated cows, endless sugarcane fields and poor farmers scratching what they can out of the recalcitrant earth.
During the final days of his Thailand assignment Helmi hopped a flight to neighbor Angkor and Siam Reap in Cambodia where, according to the photographer: “all the glory and bustle of the past lies in dust and ruins, a reminder of our mortality. Being there put my whirlwind trip through Thailand into perspective.”
“City of Angels, Plains of Dusts” - an exhibition of photographs by Rio Helmi is open daily from June 15 though September 7, 2007 at the Jenggala Gallery at Jalan Uluwatu in Jimbaran. For more information telephone ++62-(0)361-703311.
Bali Discovery Tours
June 25th, 2007
The prestigious Indonesian Digest published by Wuryastuti Sunario from Jakarta reports:
“During the first four months of 2007, from January through April, Indonesia received 1.37 million tourists through 15 gateways, or up a significant 12.78% compared to the same period last year, said Rusman Heriawan, Head of the National Statistical Bureau, reported Bisnis Indonesia.
Best performance was turned in by Bali. The island received a total of 472,082 visitors, up a hefty 38.38% when compared to the first four months last year, reported balidiscovery.com. In April, 131,034 tourists came to Indonesia through Bali, 98,101 through Jakarta, and 85,951 through Batam.
Although arrival figures are on the increase nation-wide, averaging 300,000 visitors per month, this will bring total arrivals this year to around 4.2 million, still far below the national target of 6 million for 2007. To reach the expected target, Indonesia must receive an average 500,000 tourists per month, said Ben Sukma, Chairman of the Association of the Indonesia Tour and Travel Agencies (ASITA).
Despite the fact that arrivals from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China are recovering, Indonesia’s important markets from Europe and Australia are still lagging behind. The Europe market that used to make Indonesia one of its more popular holiday destinations has dropped after Garuda Indonesia stopped flying to Europe.
The drop in the number of European tourists who used to stay in Indonesia for two months, visiting many off-the-beaten track destinations, have caused tourism in many regions to suffer greatly during the past years. The resort areas include the Toraja highlands of South Sulawesi, North Sumatra’s Lake Toba region, Nias Island, Lombok and East Nusatenggara, the Moluccas and Papua. While the trans-Java overland tour, once popular with European tourists, that included visits to Bandung, Wonosobo, Yogyakarta, Solo, Malang and on to Bali have also dropped due to a lack of participants.”
Bali Discovery Tours
June 25th, 2007
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Long one of Asia’s top tourism destinations, Bali has in the last decade also become one of the region’s top two destinations for investing in resort property. Although still someway behind Phuket in volume of sales and the number of developments, the Indonesian island is catching up fast, helped along by a newly proactive government, both at local and national level, which is keen to develop the island’s appeal as a real estate investment destination for foreign buyers.
Bali is set to capitalise on Thailand’s current troubles, which post-coup have muddied the waters on foreign ownership of property and have slowed investment across the real estate sector.
“Indonesia has a legal environment which makes it quite easy for foreigners to buy,” says Dominique Gallmann, Director of Exotiq Real Estate. “They have a government which has consistently worked on improving the investment climate here and has improved the laws which enable foreigners to buy here. Just recently a new investment law was passed, by which foreigners can now hold government titles on property for 70 years with a possibility to extend.”
Unlike a leasehold, this ‘right of use’ law is a way to effectively control the freehold of land. Leaseholds in Indonesia are arranged solely between the buyer and the seller and, with no government record kept, can be difficult to legally enforce.
Non-Indonesians cannot hold freehold in their own name and although nominee agreements are still widespread, most agents believe that Hak Pakai (Right of Use) certificates are the safest way forward for foreign investors. Linked together with a Hak Milik (freehold certificate) as ‘Hak Pakai atas Tanah Hak Milik’ (Right of Use over Freehold Land), the Hak Pakai leaves the foreign investor in effective control of their land. Importantly, the certificate can also be transferred at any time and renewed in advance.
“We’ve got a new Indonesian government that realises it has to catch up with the rest of Asia,” says Matthew Georgeson, Sales Manager at Elite Havens. “The next step is for the Bank of Indonesia to accept that the extended tenures are a medium which banks can lend on. We’re starting to get finance packages out of Jakarta now. The first step is for expatriates with a working visa and hopefully, if that goes well, they’ll roll it out to the general public in due course.”
Indonesia does not currently have a specific condominium law, which has restricted development on Bali to mostly villas. Although developments are becoming increasingly common, many buyers still opt to buy a plot of land and build an individual villa on it.
“The typical foreign investor is going to buy 20-25 are (are = 100 sqm) and build their own villa,” Gallmann says. Land prices vary considerably depending on location but start at less than US$5,000 per are for plots in the interior, to 10 times that for seaview plots in the developed south of the island.
“In northern Bali you would get decent beachfront for US$2000 an are, so US$100,000 would buy you a beautiful beachfront property. In the south, there’s nothing for that price. You’re looking at US$500,000 upwards. A four-bedroom villa, 400-450sqm, would cost around US$500psm to build.”
South is central
Up until now, development on the island has been largely restricted to the south, close to the airport and the capital Denpasar. The cultural capital Ubud, with its small community of artistically inclined expats, is the only major exception to this trend.
Seminyak, close to the tourist hub of Kuta, has long been the most active area, although once-fashionable Sanur, which has had resorts since the 1930s, has recently made a comeback after years of slow decline. However, the most dramatic increase in development in the past few years has been on the Bukit. This almost circular peninsula, which sits on Bali’s southernmost tip, has seen huge growth driven by the arrival of numerous international brands (see graphic).
“It’s the hot spot. There’s just no land available there,” Georgeson says. “I’ve got five international groups looking for land down there and we just can’t get it. There will be individual houses coming on stream in the next few years, but trying to go in there and buy 2,000-3,000sqm on the cliff is next to impossible.”
Bali’s own property ‘golden mile’, Jimbaran Bay, is located at the northwest of the Bukit. A secluded stretch of beach long popular with five-star chains such as The Four Seasons and the Ritz-Carlton, Jimbaran Bay also benefits from its close proximity to the island’s airport.
One of the most successful recent estate developments, Liv Bali, by Bali Prestigious Properties HK, is located at its northern end and points to the future of high-end development on the island. In an initiative led by the local government and supported by Jimbaran’s neighbourhood associations, a plan for the future sustainable development of the bay has been implemented. The redevelopment plan has led to the removal of over 50 badly constructed restaurants that had encroached on the beach, and a clean-up of the whole area.
Future development has been strictly limited and Bali Prestigious Properties HK has worked closely with the authorities to ensure that the estate fulfils Jimbaran’s new low-density, sustainable development ethos. Just 28 villas, a spa, a restaurant and beach club are being built on 16,300sqm of land. At the time of going to press, 17 of 28 villas had been sold, with the remainder on the market for between US$290,000-$730,000.
Further west in Seminyak, Hanno Soth, CEO of C151 Resorts and Hanno Bali, has been active on the island for over 10 years and has seen brisk business for his ultra-high end beach club developments in the past year.
“The concept of C151 is providing ultra-modern comforts of a hi-tech vacation home in the exotic environment of Bali,” he says. “C151 developments push the envelope of luxury and typically impress its visitors and guests. We’ve sold and built 90% of C151 Seminyak project Phase One and will launch Phase Two in the next few months. The villas are already operational. Our Dreamland cliff-front property is 60% complete, with only two units remaining.”
Northern potential
Given the scarcity of beachfront and seaview land, developers could soon start to move further north in greater numbers. This will also put a premium on southern land and property, which should keep prices rising steadily. Keenly aware of the north/south imbalance, the government has mooted moving the airport further north to encourage development.
Much like Phuket, the majority of buyers in Bali are expatriates based in Asia, mainly in Hong Kong and Singapore. Elite Havens has recently noted a large proportion of French investors and an increase in the amount of Russian buyers.
Proportionally though, Australians, whether based in their home country or expatriates, represent the company’s single biggest buyer group. Tourist arrivals from Australia, long representing Bali’s largest market for foreign visitors due to its close proximity, have been down since a spate of negative press generated in the country about the two bombings and the Chappelle Corby and Bali Nine drug cases. However, this has not necessarily had a negative effect on the real estate market.
“In terms of tourism, the lower and mid-level Australian markets are still not coming, but the wealthy Australians never stopped after the bombs and in fact saw it as a good time to invest,” Georgeson says. “They make up about 30% of our clientele base, although some of them are expatriates.”
Soth similarly saw no drop off. “Ironically we saw a surge in our sales immediately after the terror attack, then a lull for about three months as investors took a wait-and-see attitude,” he says. “Tourist numbers and investment dollars are now pushing towards new highs and the market is more active than ever.”
In fact, rather than dramatic, headline-grabbing news, the main problem Bali faces if it wants to truly compete with Phuket and start attracting more permanent foreign residents and retirees is a lack of decent healthcare facilities. For expat residents and wealthy locals alike, Singapore is the nearest destination for those seeking Western standards of healthcare.
“However, with comparable quality villas being 30-40% cheaper than in Thailand, many investors are happy to live with this inconvenience for now,” Soth says. “Developers and agents alike see the main challenge ahead is helping ensure that Bali keeps pace with the development boom and maintains and improves its infrastructure.
“Our main challenge is that doing things the ‘right’ way in Bali requires time. The business culture in Bali has developed over the decades into a complex system deeply routed in bureaucracy. For most developers in a hurry it can be very frustrating. Fortunately, after a decade in the business, we’ve learned to navigate the system with relative ease. The future of Bali real estate is very bright. The government has set a target for Bali to become the number one tourist destination in the world by the year 2011. I really believe this is achievable since Bali is such a unique destination.”
Thaliand Property Report Online - Bangkok,Thailand By Terry Blackburn
June 22nd, 2007
Powered by CDNN - CYBER DIVER News Network
by OLIVIA RONDONUWU
BALI, Indonesia — AS it struggles to recover from the effects of two terrorist bombings, Bali’s tourism industry is facing a new threat - global warming.
Experts say climate change is hitting Bali’s coral reefs hard, turning once vibrant diving locations into bleached shadows of their former glory.
The situation has been compounded by the widespread, but illegal, use of cyanide and bombs by local fishermen.
In the West Bali National Park, the once common sight of brightly-coloured clown fish swimming among healthy pink anemones is becoming rare. And larger fish are increasingly uncommon.
On Menjangan Island, a popular dive spot within the park, once-vibrant cliffs of underwater colour now look washed out and brittle, with rising sea temperatures aiding the bleaching process.
“Climate change is a major threat to the Bali’s coral reef ecosystem,” says Ketut Sudiarta, a lecturer at Bali’s Warmadewa University.
“The prediction of more frequent El Nino phenomena and increasing sea surface temperatures due to climate change is worrying.”
Foreign tourist numbers to the park have fallen dramatically, but no-one can say whether terrorism or the changing seascape is to blame. Just 3206 foreign tourists went there last year, compared to 20,168 in 2000 - before the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings.
Indonesia, along with Malaysia and the Philippines, has the most diverse marine life in the world, while Australia’s Great Barrier Reef sits on the second ring.
But coral bleaching has intensified over the past 20 years - a severe El Nino event in 1998 was blamed for the most extensive bleaching to coral reefs in Bali, as sea surface temperatures climbed.
El Nino is a powerful phenomenon in which ocean surface temperatures fluctuate and warmer currents replace cooler ones, and experts warn global warming will generate more frequent El Nino events in the future.
“The bleaching doesn’t mean the coral is dead, but it makes the corals become transparent,” says Reef Check Indonesia’s Naneng Setiasih.
“If it stays like that for along time, it will die.
“If it isn’t exposed to the (warmer) temperature for a long time, and the stress is not too big, it can return back to normal.”
Greenpeace activists in Bali’s busy Kuta tourist precinct this week staged a protest, urging greater action to tackle the problem of climate change.
“Ultimately, the survival of the reefs in Bali and other tropical regions depends on halting the catastrophic phenomenon of climate change,” Greenpeace South East Asia climate and energy campaigner Nur Hidayati said.
“And the only way to do that is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, especially burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil that are responsible for the bulk of emissions.”
Reef Check said other illegal practices were compounding problems in the West Bali National Park.
Despite a government ban, fisherman are continuing to use potassium cyanide to catch fish. They spray the highly toxic compound into holes in the coral to flush out fish, which are then scooped up.
Reef Check is also alarmed about the ongoing use of bombs by fishermen, with the devices used killing everything within a four metre radius.
“Sedimentation, bombing, cyanide, coastal development unfriendly to the environment must be stopped, if not the corals will not have a chance to survive,” Reef Check’s Setiasih said.
In some parts of the park’s marine protected zone, such as Banyu Wedang, dead coral is scattered like rubble on the sea floor.
Sudiarta says the amount of coral has fallen significantly since 1997, when it covered 43.5 per cent of the marine area off Menjangan Island.
After 2001, it was about 30.1 per cent, but has recovered slightly to be about 35 per cent currently.
Despite the problems, Sudiarta said awareness is low. Unless that changes, the marine ecosystem in West Bali is firmly on the endangered list.
SOURCE - Sunday Times
June 22nd, 2007
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