Bali Tourism Authorities have been doing their best (I guess) to put a smiling face to their reopening efforts for international tourists but the entire process has proven to be a total disaster.
Not only are there no flights scheduled that allow tourists to arrive in Bali in the first place but now the Indonesian government has put the quarantine back up to 7x24hrs after reducing it back in October.
The question is are they really serious about reopening Bali to the general public or is this just a paper exercise as they know full well nobody is going to visit under these circumstances, especially since there are no flights right now to bring tourists to Bali in the first place.
Over the last few months there have been constant updates about Bali reopening, several dates came and went. Then on paper tourists were allowed to officially enter provided they arrived by direct flight from an approved destination abroad, get an e-visa (Visa Waiver Program has been discontinued for now) and do a quarantine at a range of designated hotels.
The catch? So far nobody has arrived as the required flights aren’t operating.
They have designed a website called Welcome Back to Bali (access here) which – to their credit – has a lot of up-to-date information but the entire system is totally useless.
Here are the current conditions as outlined:
Effective 29 November until further notice:
1. The Indonesian government has extended the quarantine for all international arrivals to 7 days to prevent transmission of new Omicron Covid-19 variant.
2. Temporary entry suspension for foreigner travellers traveling directly or transit and/or staying or visiting in the following countries within 14 days or more: South Africa, Botswana, Hongkong as well as countries located geographically close to countries where the new variant B.1.1.529 were significantly transmitted in the community such as: Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Eswatini, Lesotho.Bali is now open to fully vaccinated passport holders and residents of the countries listed below, flights are NOT yet scheduled.
For information about flying into Jakarta for International travellers please see information below.
The current list of countries permitted to arrive directly in Bali are:
Bahrain
China
France
Hungary
India
Italy
Japan
Kuwait
Liechtenstein
New Zealand
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
South Korea
Spain
Sweden
United Arab EmiratesInternational Travellers
into BaliValid e-VISA for entry into Indonesia for (Foreign travellers)
- B211A for tourism need to show provide evidence of funds in bank of at at least US$2000 and confirmation and payment receipt from accommodation where they are staying for the duration of trip including quarantine hotel.
- For other visas which are also available please check here . At this all other visa holders will need to clear immigration in Jakarta or Manado.
Negative PCR test taken within 3 x 24 hours of departure
Quarantine
- One Dose Vaccinated 7 x 24 hours
- Fully Vaccinated 7 x 24 hours
For both one dose or fully vaccinated traveller quarantine is in a designated hotel. Click here for list of approved hotels and how to book.
Confirmed quarantine hotel booking (with QR code from Hotel).
Downloaded Peduli Lindungi App which includeseHAC
Proof of full vaccination (physical or digital) in English with second dose at least 14 days before departure
Foreign travelers are also required to show health insurance/travel insurance coverage up to US$100,000
The list of approved countries is absolutely ridiculous. It’s a wild mix of nations all over the map. Liechtenstein? Really?
There there is the visa and itinerary (routing) requirement among other things as outlined here.
We have covered Bali and their constant stream of re-opening notices extensively here on LoyaltyLobby:
No arrivals due to missing flights:
Bali’s Opening For International Flights Not Exactly A Success (None)!
Quarantine periods always shifted from 14 to 10 to 7 to 5 to 2 and now back to 7 days:
Hotels were accused of inflating prices for the mandatory quarantine period (quite common):
Effective October 14th they were expecting to receive visitors but the government had other plans:
The hotels are rather overwhelmed as well. Policies change constantly, they get guest inquiries and can’t properly answer them other than referring them to the Welcome Back to Bali website. I emailed the Grand Hyatt Bali where I usually like to stay and they took like 4 days to answer every single mail. Not sure what’s going on there!?
Conclusion
I probably won’t visit Bali/Indonesia until sometime in 2022 when they hopefully have their act together. Not that I really have a convenient choice at the moment.
You can probably enter Bali by spending the first week in Jakarta or other parts of Indonesia rather than being locked up in a hotel for 7x 24hrs on Bali even after flights go there and my countries of citizenship/residence are on the approved list. Still, it’s a far stretch.
The entire airport/arrival process as outlined is pretty crazy. Why would anyone go to Bali under this proposed scheme with 7 days hotel quarantine? Unless they’d allow you to roam on the hotel grounds and beach which in the case of the extremely big resorts like Grand Hyatt Bali would be alright with me.
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