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NELBali Property News

Tourism to get IDR 2.4 Billion

Smile: Tourists pose and take pictures in front of a beautiful vista of terraced rice fields in Ceking, Tegalalang. BD/Agung Parameswara

Bali has allocated Rp 2.4 billion (US$259,200) for tourism promotion nationwide and abroad this year, the provincial tourism agency said on Tuesday.

The budget will be used for various activities promoting the island’s destinations to attract some 3 million foreign tourists this year, said the agency’s head of promotion division, Tjok Bagus Pemayun.

The agency and the island’s tourism stakeholders carry out five models of promotional activities, mainly by participating in a series of tourism-related exhibitions in other provinces and worldwide.

“We recently took part in Banjarbaru Travel Fair in South Kalimantan and Majapahit Travel Fair in Surabaya. Now we are gearing up for Gebyar Wisata Nusantara, which will take place in Jakarta from May 31 until June 3,” Pemayun said.

More exhibitions are coming up this year, he added, including Krakatau Festival in Lampung and Batam Expo in Batam, both being held in October.

The island’s tourism stakeholders also actively join other annual exhibitions abroad, including the biggest, ITB Berlin in March, as well as World Travel Market in London in November.

They will also promote Bali tourism attractions during Festival Indonesia in Melbourne, PATA Travel Mart and JATA Tourism Forum in September.

“We choose the events based on our analysis of the potential tourist market,” he said, adding that for next year more promotions were targeted at China and Russia.

The provincial tourism agency also promotes Bali through its website tourism.baliprov.go.id, through articles in several printed media and familiarization trips inviting journalists from many countries to visit Bali.

Last year, the island managed to attract 2.75 million foreign tourists and 5.67 million domestic tourists, increasing from 2.49 million foreign tourists and 4.64 million domestic tourists in 2010. According to the agency’s data, the highest contribution of foreign tourists last year was from Australia (28.69 percent), followed by China (8.59 percent), Japan (6.65 percent), Malaysia (6.16 percent) and Taiwan (4.69 percent).

The Bali administration will also establish the Provincial Tourism Promotion Agency this year as a follow up to the recent establishment of the National Tourism Promotion Agency by the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry. The institution is responsible for promoting the island’s attractions.

Chairman of the Association of Indonesian Tour and Travel Agencies (ASITA) for Bali Aloysius Purwa said that the association members were now intensifying promotional activities in Australia, Japan and Europe, despite the
financial crisis in the latter.

“We are focusing on attracting higher-spending tourists to stay for a longer period. The most important thing is not the numbers of tourists,” he stressed.

He added that Bali is considered a creative destination that is always able to present many attractions, thus tourists are never bored and like to come back to the island.

Source: TheJakartaPost.com

Seeking the Quality of Mercy

(5/13/2012)

Agence France Presse and The Jakarta Globe report that 28-year-old Australian Andrew Chan has filed a formal appeal for clemency from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, seeking a reprieve from the sentence of death before a firing squad.

In June 2011 Chan saw his final appeal against his death sentence rejected by the Indonesian courts, commencing a final countdown to his death under a newly streamlined and expedited execution process that formerely consumed decades in Indonesia.

With the clock ticking down, Chan’s only remaining hope of staying alive is an act of clemency from the Indonesian President; a man who has made past statements declaring no inclination for mercy or leniency in dealing with those convicted of narcotics offences.

Chan together with eight other Australians known as the “Bali Nine” were caught trying to smuggle 8 kilograms of heroin from Bali to Australia in June 2005.

Myuran Sukumaran, another Australian national, is the other remaining member of the “Bali Nine” under sentence of death.

Chan’s final deadline for filing a request for clemency fell on May 10, 2012, prompting the appeal filed by his lawyer just before that cut-off date. Sukumaran has until July 6, 2012, to make a similar final appeal for Presidential mercy.

The remaining seven members of “The Bali Nine” have five serving life sentences and the remaining two serving punishments of 18 and 20 years.

In making the appeal for mercy to the Indonesian President, Chan’s lawyers have argued that their client's age warrant the chance to be given a chance live and reform his life.

The Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has underlined her government’s opposition to the death penalty, affirming she would work to have Chan’s sentence commuted.

Australia performed its last execution in 1967.

The previous Australian government under Prime Minister John Howard did not call for the commutation of the death sentence for the three Indonesian men sentenced to death for the 2002 Bali bombing, saying, in that instance, “justice was served” by the death penalty.

Source: BaliUpdate.com

The Greatest Thing You will Ever Learn

(5/13/2012)

 

Australian John Fawcett came to Bali 30 years ago at the age of 49, diagnosed as critically ill and waited for what he thought was a fast-approaching end.

Three decades on, John Fawcett is still on Bali, very much alive and making a genuine difference in the lives of the people who live on the island that is his adopted home.

The John Fawcett Foundation, established by John, has decades of life-changing work to its credit. The foundation has performed more than 33,0000 sight-giving cataract operations in Bali, Kupang, East Java, Sumatra and Kalimantan.

The good news for Bali is that  at 80 years of age John shows little sign of slowing down.

Agnes Winarti of Bali Daily  interviewed this much-loved and highly admired man.

The resulting interview is a good read, which we highly recommend:

Source: BaliUpdate.com

Demolished - Five Batubelig Restaurants

It is a Jungle Out There