preparation of opening bali to foreign tourists in mid 2021

In his recent visit to Bali, President Joko Widodo shared his thoughts that if the covid-19 pandemic spread is under control, Bali might restart the tourism in June or July.

Officials are already working hard on setting up a travel corridor program that may allow us to see oreign tourists visiting Bali by the middle of this year, Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno has announced.

After the statement from President, a follow up meeting was held which included Sandiaga and other officials, including Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi and Bali Governor Wayan Koster that focused on setting up a "strict reopening" to foreign tourism in a few months.

This new timeline is a lot sooner than the previous one of April 2022, which was announced by Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin.

Officials have been spouting different terms in the last few weeks, from “green zones,” to “COVID-19 safe travel” and “Free COVID Corridor,” all of which appear to be part of the same grand strategy to revive Bali’s tourism-dependent economy.

Sandiaga in a statement explained that this travel corridor arrangement will be agreed with the countries that have successfully contained the spread of corona virus with high vaccination rates and can offer mutual benefits. China, Netherlands, UAE and Singapore are the countries that are being considered at the moment.

“But the finalization will depend on each [partner] country’s travel corridor arrangement,” he said.

However many milestones have to be achieved including low infection numbers, strict compliance to health protocols, increased stronger testing, treatment & tracing and at least 2 million vaccinations of people are to be done before starting the program by July.