05 February 2024 , 09:30
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An island paradise is introducing a tourist tax as locals grow tired of flocks of visitors overburdening the area.
From Valentine's Day all foreign visitors entering Bali will have to pay a 150,000 Indonesian rupiah (around £7.50) fee per person and per entry, on top of the 500,000 rupiah (around £25) charge for a 30-day visa to the country.
Officials have said the tax is designed to counter over-tourism on the island, which welcomed around 4.5million holidaymakers last year - roughly the same number as local residents.
Since reopening after the Covid lockdowns, the presence of too many, often unruly visitors has become an increasingly charged political issue. The local government has recently proposed banning visitors from renting motorbikes to curb reckless driving, CNN reported.
The Indonesian immigration department has been busy deporting foreigners who have been working illegally on tourist visas, including one person working illegally on visitor papers to teach Balinese dance and meditation.
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(AFP via Getty Images)At the same time, Bali has also introduced a new guidebook on how to behave after a string of incidents, including a tourist who was seen mooning on top of a sacred mountain, while another was seen dancing naked on Mount Batur.
The manual offers instructions on how to dress and behave in sacred sites and cultural landmarks on the island. Presumably the group of holidaymakers who filed a complaint against crowing roosters belonging to a local had not read it.
One influencer found herself in hot water after posing naked at a 700-year-old sacred tree - an act that caused a huge amount of local outrage.
Fatmawati, an Indonesian personal assistant and freelance photographer who moved to Bali from the island of Java nine years ago, is one person who is fed up with the impact of tourism. They told the Washington post: “We have a lot of tolerance here, … but it’s this behaviour of: ‘I am the more important person. Look at me.' It’s disgusting. People are tired of it. I’m tired of it.”
Tjok Bagus Pemayun, the head of the Bali government tourism office, said "of course (locals) would be angry" to see foreigners disrespect their culture, as it's something they're proud of. "Destroying their culture means destroying their life," Tjok added.
Bali is far from the only place which has been struggling with over-tourism lately. In recent years an influx of visitors has put the Canary Islands and its infrastructure under an enormous strain which is no longer sustainable, urban planners have said. If the massive influx of tourists who visit the Canaries is not reduced then they face "systemic collapse".
Experts working for campaign group Ben Magec-Ecologists in Action have spoken out after tourist figures for 2023 revealed a record number of visitors - 16 million. By one estimate, as many as half of these are Brits.
Locals have begun to push back against the influx of visitors, however, concerned as they are that numbers are growing too high for infrastructure to cope. The vast majority of food is imported, while the islands have difficulty dealing with the waste such large numbers of visitors produce.
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