A Stalled Recovery for Bali

The June 2006 arrivals may indicate that Bali's tourism recovery has stalled with the gap in month-on-month arrivals widening slightly after encouraging signs of gradual improvement during the period December 2005 - April 2006.

June foreign arrivals at Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport totaled 109,651 - a number that lagged a full -19.58% behind the 136,369 visitors in June 2005.

Unfortunately while the gap in foreign arrivals month-on-month had narrowed to -10.65% in April 2006, that gap widened in the following month to -12.72% in May worsening further to -19.59% in June 2006 as the Bali Discovery explained.

June 2006 arrivals to Bali have provided mixed signals regarding the resilience of Bali's tourism recovery. Indications earlier in the year that business as measured in foreign arrivals was staging a fast comeback following the October 1, 2005 Bali terrorist bombing, have been tempered by arrival reports for the second quarter of 2006 that show the Island's recovery has stalled and may even be backsliding.

Worth noting is that despite the backward slip in arrivals for June 2006 the recovery in arrivals following Bali's most recent terror attack is taking place on a much higher plane than was the case following the 2002 attack. June foreign arrivals of 109,651 are 34.94% higher than the arrivals in June 2003 at 81,256.