A traveler pushes a cart upon arrival at the Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali on March 7.Photographer: Putu Sayoga/Bloomberg
ByEko Listiyorini
March 10, 2022, 1:40 PM GMT+8
An ongoing trial in Bali to let international visitors enter without quarantine is boding well for a broader reopening of Indonesia’s borders, said a senior minister.
“We see the Covid situation is improving,” said Luhut Panjaitan, coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment who oversees the pandemic response for Java and Bali. Indonesia is on track to lift all quarantine rules in April or earlier, as foreign tourists in Bali now only need to wait for a negative test result on arrival before being released, he added.
The government is also set to expand its list of 23 countries eligible to get visas on arrival, Septian Hario Seto, a deputy at the coordinating ministry, said in the joint interview with Panjaitan on Wednesday.
Indonesia has been taking steps to ease virus restrictions and reopen international borders to revive its tourism industry, with a target of as many as 3.6 million visitors this year. While Bali’s reopening started slowly, the beach destination has begun to welcome more foreign tourists since a plane from Tokyo landed in early February, the first direct international flight to arrive in Bali since the country shut its borders in March 2020.
