JAKARTA -- Indonesia will reopen its popular tourism island of Bali to some international arrivals from mid-October, a senior official said Monday, as the country aims to rejuvenate its travel industry that has been ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Pandjaitan said Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport will open from Oct.14, but those arriving will have to quarantine for eight days.
Pandjaitan said arrivals from countries such as China, Japan and South Korea may be permitted to enter, but in a separate press conference, Tourism Minister Sandiaga Uno said the eligibility list has not been finalized.
"It will be countries that would meet certain criteria, like the COVID-19 situations being under control. In that particular country, the testing requirements would [need to] meet with our standard that we both agree," the tourism minister said.
Uno said he was expecting businessmen and returning expatriates "who used to live in Bali, or even including foreign tourists" to take advantage of the reopening of the island. Further details are still being discussed, the tourism minister added.
The government had initially wanted to reopen the island in July, but had to scrap the plan as cases in the country surged, including in Bali.
Tourism contributed 5.7% to Indonesia's gross domestic product in 2019, lower than in its neighbors like Thailand. But Bali itself is much more reliant on visitors and its economy has been decimated by the pandemic. Bali's GDP contracted 9.3% in 2020, suffering the worst among Indonesia's 34 provinces.
Indonesia has been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, at one point becoming the regional epicenter of the outbreak. However, cases have decreased since its peak in July. The archipelagic country registered only 922 daily new cases on Monday, well below the 50,000 the country recorded three months ago. Bali recorded only 52 cases on Monday.
While only 33.9% of the eligible population has been fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data, Bali has been an outlier with 60%. Jakarta has the highest vaccination rate with 75% of its population fully vaccinated.
Additional reporting by Ismi Damayanti