On Tuesday, February 11, 2020, NOS News (Netherlands) wrote that Dutch travelers booked fewer trips to countries in Asia such as Bali for example, because of the Corona Virus.

The spokesperson for TUI was proud to say how well their company was doing and that Asia was not in demand at the moment, this was more than made up for, because the Dutch travelers now mainly booked holidays to other destinations. Cor and our famous Don also said that Curaçao was especially popular and that the Dutch traveler would rather not travel to Bali now. And finally D-Reizen came with the same message. Those are not all little boys in the travel world, so you think “they” should know better.

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And now, how is Corona affecting Bali?

How different is this now 2 months later. Who would have expected that the Corona crisis started in China would become a global Pandemic.

Bookings are canceled through the end of May and a single traveler will even cancel all of his or her bookings for quarter 4 of this year. The damage is millions for the large travel companies. But for us as small travel organization the financial damage is also quite large now.

Well what can you do as a Bali specialist? My main concern is for the people in Bali. They are the ones who suffer the most. The larger hotels fall over or fire staff. Because Bali is very dependent on tourism, many people are now without work and therefore without income. And believe me, in Bali they don’t have a social safety net as we have in the Netherlands. For me it’s therefore very important to continue to take care of my staff in Bali. After all, they should not be the victims of this crisis. So I emptied my piggy bank and go into survival mode.

Bali is not locked, but they don’t allow tourist at the moment. That’s a good thing, suppose the Corona virus spreads there! The consequences would be incalculable. That is why Bali (all of Indonesia) has decided not to allow tourists anymore. The villages are mostly in lock down and the holiday villas in Bali too. This is to protect the local population and of course also the tourists.

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Future for travelling to Bali?

But that’s of course not permanent. Together we will defeat the corona virus. Bali will reopen and the tourists will come back to Bali. So if you can travel again, let’s not forget to go to beautiful Bali and make life better for the Balinese people.