An official of the Bali Tourism Agency has suggested that the government extend the visa on arrival program to another 18 countries to boost Bali tourism.
The Head of the Bali Tourism Agency, Tjok Bagus Pemayun, confirmed that he has proposed that the central government resume the VoA program to 18 additional countries, namely: China, India, Switzerland, Spain, Taiwan, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Poland, Chille, Morocco, Tunisia, Hongkong, Denmark, Belgium, Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine.
He believes this will help revive the Bali tourism sector, which has been heavily affected by the pandemic.
The additional countries were identified after considering which countries had a significant impact on Bali’s economy before the Covid-19 pandemic.
“China and India are among those selected countries as a large number of visitors to Bali came from there before the pandemic struck,” Pemayun said on Tuesday (15/3). However, Pemayun admitted that he didn’t try to insist on his proposal, considering that India and China used to be epicenters of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We only filed a proposal, but I believe that the officials of the National Covid-19 Handling Task Force have their own assessment regarding the current situation,” Pemayun concluded.
As The Bali Sun previously reported, the central government has resumed the visa on arrival program to 28 select countries. They also dropped the quarantine policy as part of their effort to revive the Bali tourism sector.
Sources: https://thebalisun.com/bali-official-suggests-to-have-the-voa-program-extended-to-another-18-countries/