Pre- and post-pandemic, it’s not surprising to know that the Indonesian island paradise that is Bali remains one of the world’s most desirable and most visited destinations.
As of November 2025, the province’s I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport welcomed a staggering 4.8 million foreign arrivals, with Australian and Indian travellers leading the pack.
In terms of economics, this is a major boon for Bali, given how the tourism sector contributes up to 70 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) and hires 25 percent of the island’s total workforce.
However, such a boom does not necessarily mean that tourism is a purely good thing for Bali and its people; on the contrary, tourism, especially in the context of overtourism, is also the biggest thorn in its side.
The downside of mass tourism
For Bali, tourism and the industrialisation that comes with it have all but sounded a death-knell for its native culture and traditions.
In its country report on Bali, Responsible Travel’s experts pointed out that, while overtourism affects everyone, locals bear the brunt of its impact even after guests have long gone.
While the blatant disrespect of foreigners to the people and their culture is galling enough, the Balinese have also needed to deal with overdevelopment, the depletion of key resources such as groundwater, rampant pollution, as well as traffic congestion at almost all hours of the day.
In fact, the issue of overtourism in Bali actually isn’t new; in August 2012, the French newspaper Le Monde published a piece decrying the way mass tourism was destroying the island paradise.
At the time, I Wayan Suardana of the Indonesian environmental protection organisation Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia (WALHI) mourned the fact that the measures meant to boost cultural tourism in the province have led to its own downfall at the hands of the foreign visitors it sought to draw in.
Suardana remarked: “Bali really became a tourist destination in the 1970s. But in the beginning, it was mostly cultural tourism. Today, we are witnessing mass tourism, and that's the very problem!”
The environmental advocate was actually reported to the authorities in 2016 for protesting the Benoa Bay Reclamation Plan which would have turned what is essentially a marine conservation area into a luxury hospitality enclave which would not have only ruined the area’s ecological balance, but would also squander a major part of the island’s freshwater reserves for the exclusive use of their guests.
But while WALHI successfully prevented the reclamation of Benoa Bay, it remains unsuccessful in curbing the rezoning of agricultural land into hospitality and leisure areas for foreign guests, and locals are losing up to 700 hectares of land per year to commercialisation.
Cultural erosion
Blatant disrespect of local culture and traditions is another issue that authorities are struggling to address, much to the ire of the native Hindu population which has long chafed under Indonesia’s Muslim majority.
It also hasn’t helped that many western visitors who come to Bali have this anything goes mindset, the one where anything that happens abroad, stays abroad.
But in these days when social media is king, their shenanigans are broadcast across platforms, exposing their boorish behaviour to the rest of the world.
As the experts at Responsible Tourism put it: “A sense of entitlement has emerged among some visitors, not helped by a rise in social media influencers creating an image of the island that doesn’t stand up to reality. This points to a perception that Bali is a place where ‘anything goes’, which is entirely at odds with the respect for others that is embedded within traditional culture here.”
While this has resulted in stricter guidelines regarding public propriety, sobriety, and decorum in sacred sites, authorities still struggle to curb unruly and often openly disrespectful behaviour among foreigners.
The commercialisation and commodification of culture and cultural icons has also proven to be more of a bane than a boon to Bali, as some of its most iconic traditions are dismissed as “charming” local quirks and shoddy souvenirs.
Navigating the uphill climb
The road to recovery of any sort is never an easy thing, more so for Bali as it tries to navigate itself out of the rut dug deep by overtourism.
Nevertheless, this Indonesian province has been working to alleviate if not completely eradicate the issue through the implementation of new laws and measures regulating tourism, sustainability, and public behaviour.
Since the end of the pandemic, these have included:
- Greater tourist levies and stricter visa control Bali has been charging a mandatory tourist levy of around US$4 since February 2024. Revenues collected from the levy are allocated to initiatives related to environmental protection and cultural preservation. Indonesian authorities are also looking into revising existing laws and regulations for long-term visas for foreigners;
- A moratorium on development and construction Construction initiatives related to hospitality and leisure development, particularly in the strained region of South Bali, have been suspended or scrapped all together as of September 2024. As of press time, the Indonesian government has not rescinded the moratorium which some officials say could remain in place for up to ten years;
- Harsher punishment for misbehaviour Arrests and fines are one thing, but foreigners need to be more careful when in Bali as deportation awaits those caught in the acts of public indecency, disrespect to local cultural or religious sites, being under the influence, and even traffic violations;
- Revamped waste management Per a report from National Geographic, local authorities are working to properly dispose of the almost 33,000 tonnes of single-use plastic waste tossed into Bali’s surrounding waters. Measures are also being made to ensure an ample supply of freshwater for the local population;
- Transportation-centric infrastructure Authorities are likewise finding solutions to decongest roads, including urban railways as well as those connecting Bali to the rest of the Indonesian archipelago; and
- The promotion of secondary destinations On the part of the national government, tourism authorities are shifting the attention from congested areas like Bali and Jakarta to lesser-known but equally appealing areas like Yogyakarta, Labuan Bajo, and Bandung, infusing these locations with ample financing for tourism-related infrastructure.
Admittedly, the overtourism issue in Bali will not disappear overnight; but the Balinese want visitors to know that it is still their island, their homeland.
As one local entrepreneur put it: “Our hospitality has been taken for granted. If you wouldn’t do certain things in your own country, don’t do it in Bali. Don’t blame us if we take action, don’t blame us if we speak up, don’t blame us if we stand up and tell you it has to stop.”
