Published on : Friday, February 7, 2020
As most of these visitors were traveling on short tourist visas and were taken aback with the flight ban, Indonesia said that it would grant one month extensions. Chinese Consul General in Denpasar Gou Haodong met local officials in Bali and asked for help to extend the stay of the stranded tourists.
Indonesia suspended direct flights to and from mainland China from Wednesday. The last flight to Guangzhou departed Wednesday morning from Bali. It has also temporarily discontinued visas on arrival for Chinese citizens.
Bali, the most popular Indonesian tourist destination, is already feeling the effect of the virus outbreak with visitors staying away from its beaches and scenic terraced rice paddy fields. At 2.1 million, Chinese visitors accounted for the second largest group of tourists to Indonesia after Malaysians last year.
The consulate said that Chinese tourists can still transit through third countries including Malaysia and Thailand if they wish to return home. But some of them preferred to stay on in Bali due to the virus outbreak in China.
I Putu Astawa, head of the Bali Tourism Agency said, “We still don’t have an accurate data on the number of Chinese tourists because some of them were booked online and are staying in different places. However, according to the consulate, about 5,000 Chinese are in Bali and they are happy here.”
Tags: Chinese tourists