JakartaPost/Reuters-May 17
As the number of tourists in Bali continues to rise, hotels on the island are suffering from declining occupancy rates, which they blame on a growing number of unlicensed rentals, raising concerns about harm to the local economy. The Bali chapter of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) has reported a roughly 20 percent decrease in Bali hotel occupancy rates, which it linked to a trend of travelers choosing “illegal accommodations”, such as unlicensed luxury kos-kosan (rooming houses) and villas. PHRI Bali chairman Tjokorda “Tjok” Oka Artha Ardana Sukawati told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that the number of travelers flocking to the island had moved in the opposite direction as hotel occupancy rates. Bali welcomed 1.45 million international travelers in the first quarter of this year, up 7.95 percent from 1.34 million recorded during the same period of 2024, according to Statistics Indonesia (BPS). Meanwhile, the average hotel occupancy rate in Bali was on a downward trend, Tjok said, before calling on government authorities to take action by enforcing accommodation licensing and ownership rules in Bali. PHRI secretary-general Maulana Yusran also urged local authorities to strictly enforce prevailing regulations to curb illegal practices in the accommodation sector, including by monitoring the integrated online single submission (OSS) system for business licensing. Speaking to the Post on Tuesday, he said hotels across the country were facing a double whammy of increasing unlicensed accommodation and government budget cuts for official trips, both of which had contributed significantly to the decline in occupancy rates. The increasing availability of unlicensed accommodation, Bali authorities fear, could hurt the provincial economy. Bali outpaced national economic growth in the first quarter as its regional gross domestic product (RGDP) rose 5.52 percent year-on-year. The hospitality industry alone accounts for 21.23 percent of the island’s RGDP. Read more at:
https://www.thejakartapost.com/business/2025/05/17/hotels-demand-crackdown-on-unlicensed-rentals-in-bali.html.
