Every year, millions of tourists flood Bali for their holidays, unfortunately not all of them are well behaved, some visitors have been caught desecrating holy sites and breaking laws.
After this the Indonesian government brought in the tourism tax of $15 on February 14 expecting to bring in more than $80 million of revenue a year to assist in cultural preservation and environmental measures.
However roughly 60% of tourists have not been paying it, with staff not enforcing it at airport arrivals and some visitors not even being aware of how to pay it.
What people have not enjoyed is being approached on their day out with random spot checks by tourism police asking them for the money.
Ketut Yadnya, the head of promotions for the Bali Governments tourism office was quoted about the bad behaviour and tourism tax saying, “We have the list on what tourists can do and what they cannot do in Bali, But the Levy is different. We want our tourism to be sustainable and to sustain it, we need to conserve the culture. So for that, we need, of course, some money”
Some locals are, of course, concerned with the fee. Not only will tourists now be paying a visa-on-arrival fee they will be paying the tourist tax on top of that.
They are concerned that the extra fee will drive tourists to “rival” destinations. Although these concerns are valid, numbers have been on the rise almost back to the point of pre-covid.
All new laws have teething problems but a lot of tourist seem fine with the small fee if it means they still get to have their Bali holiday.
