Bali Ends 2014 with Record High 3.76 million Foreign Visitors

In keeping with predictions made by Balidiscovery.com and exceeding official government projections, Bali ended 2014 with 3,768,362 foreign visitors, 14.92% more than the 3,278,598 recorded in 2013.

Month-on-month, December 2014 arrivals hit 349,094 and improvement of 16.75% over the 299,013 arrivals in December 2013.

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With Bali projecting a relatively modest 10% growth in foreign visitors in 2015, look for foreign arrivals to easily surpass the 4 million mark in the current year.

Australia maintained its top position as a source for foreign visitors ending 2014 within striking distance of 1 million at 991,024 visitors. Australian arrivals increased 19.92% for the year.

Mainland Chinese visitors increased a phenomenal 51.26% for the whole of 2015 ending the year at 586,197. Plans for charters and new flight frequencies between Bali and China should see Chinese visitors totals continue to grow in 2015.

Malaysia became the third largest source of visitors to Bali in 2014 improving 12.91% to achieve 224,962 arrivals.

Japan – once the largest source of tourist visitors to Bali – slipped into fourth place among sources of Bali visitors in 2014, despite improving 4.43% at 217,330 in 2014. Japanese arrivals remains doubtful for 2015 with a deepening recession and a weakening Yen.

Singapore arrivals, boosted by cheap airfares, held on to fifth place among foreign source markets in 2014 with 217,330 visitors – an increase of 29.55% over the preceding year.

South Korean arrivals improved 8.49% in 2014 hitting 145,873.

Among European source markets, France is the largest source of visitors (7th overall), followed by the U.K (8th overall), Germany (11th), Netherlands (13th) and Russia (14th). 

Russian arrivals declined 9.09% in 2014 and slipped three slots in the rankings. Bellicose policies, a weakening Ruble and international trade embargoes suggest Russian arrivals to Bali may decline even further in 2015. Demonstrating that the crisis in Russian arrivals may be deepening, month-on-month Russian arrivals were down 25.62% when comparing December 2014 with December 2013.

Worth noting also is a 10.06% decline in Taiwanese visitors and a dramatic increase of 36.35% improvement in Indian visitors in 2014. Look for Indian travel to continue to grow in Bali.

Despite much fanfare from Indonesia's newly elected government in October of last year that Australia, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia would be extended visa-free status with the dawn of 2015, this has not happened, creating ill will among the affected source markets and generalized doubts on the ability of the government to grow tourism arrival numbers.

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