In the laneways of Ubud, three older Chinese women are laughing as they take photos of a friend posing under a cascade of tropical flowers. They are retired friends from Nanjing, and were frequent travellers before the pandemic.
“Bali has good people and good scenery. It’s cold in Nanjing now, so it’s a good time to come here,” says Zhang Min*. “We’re going sailing tomorrow, climbing a volcano the day after, and snorkelling. I want to try everything.”
The women have gone off on their own for a little walk, but came to Bali as part of what was once a ubiquitous site at global tourism hotspots – a large Chinese tour group.
When the pandemic shut down international borders, these tour groups – along with almost all other travellers – disappeared. Indonesia, which relies on tourism for as much as 6% of its GDP, is working hard to get them back, despite ongoing concerns about overtourism.
Since borders reopened, the world has witnessed waves of mass “revenge travel” as people try to make up for lost time, but people from China have been slower to rejoin. The country was one of the last to relax pandemic restrictions, and by then was also suffering an economic downturn and youth unemployment crisis.
In 2018, more than 2.13 million Chinese tourists visited Indonesia – more than those from all European nations combined, and second only to visitors from Malaysia. In 2021, the figure was just 54,000.
“Of course, we would like to get back into the bonanza-era, pre-pandemic,” says Ni Made Ayu Marthini, Indonesia’s deputy minister for tourism marketing. Ayu Marthini says she realised Chinese people were fascinated with her country when she came across a replica Balinese village in China’s southern Hainan province.
Indonesian tourism officials are in China every second month, organising with major Chinese companies such as Huawei and booking giant Ctrip. Deals with Chinese airlines target a list of “crown jewels” across Indonesia and posts on Douyin market places like Pink Beach in Komodo national park and swimming with whale sharks in Sumbawa. Travel agency Komodo Trips says they have 100-150 Chinese clients taking three-day boat trips to Komodo island every month.
In 2023 there were 788,000 Chinese visitors – around four times the previous year. This year Indonesia has set a target of 1.5 million. Officials saying unplanned events like the recent volcano eruption have had an impact, but they think the total will exceed 1 million by Christmas – still around half pre-pandemic levels.
Zhang says she and her friends are lucky they can afford to travel, but it’s not so easy for younger people back home.
“There are a lot of videos and content about young Chinese travelling around, but that’s not the reality. Young people are under a lot of pressure,” she says. “Healthcare, education and housing are a big burden on their shoulders.”
The Chinese government, increasingly concerned about foreign influence and espionage, is also tightening social and political restrictions for citizens at home and abroad. Media reports have documented some public service sectors confiscating employees’ passports so officials can control who gets to travel.
In Ubud, the Guardian meets one group of workers from a major state-backed baijiu liquor company. A middle-aged man in the group says he came to Bali to relieve his stress because of the fast pace of life in China. Then, wary, he defers questions to the tour guide who says he’s taken Chinese people around the world but “realised that our motherland is the best after travelling abroad”.
Ayu Marthini says she hasn’t confirmed the stories of passport confiscations, and doesn’t appear to be worried about any potential impact on their targets. But she says it’s not just about the numbers.
“The numbers are important, but so is [attracting] responsible tourists, who are spending big and having experiences,” she says. “Pre-pandemic we had more tour groups [from China]. Now it’s more young people wanting to do independent travel.”
Ma Dan and her family are travelling with a tour group of 80, but say they’ll plan an independent trip next time.
“When we are travelling with a tour group, I can’t stop to see many places even if I want to,” says Ma. “If I’m travelling on my own, I’ll slow down a bit and stay for a day if I like a place.”
It’s also hoped that a wider “distribution of tourists” could thread the needle between welcoming tourist dollars and preventing overtourism.
Bali remains the most popular Indonesian destination for Chinese visitors – almost 48,000 visited in July alone, about a third of all Chinese visitors to Indonesia that month.
Indonesia’s tourism minister, Santiago Uno, warned in August that even a 10% increase in visitors to Bali would push it into “overtourism”, and the government has suspended construction of new hotels, bars and villas in some parts of the island.
Marthini, herself a Balinese, says that on a per capita basis Bali doesn’t get an extreme number of visitors, but they concentrate in the south and central parts of the island.
“We need to balance. If you want to have Bali forever, you must protect the people,” she said. “You can copy it of course, but there’s only one Bali.”
*Some names have been changed
