Adding to the cost of a Bali trip, Indonesia will no longer issue free tourist visas. Instead, tourists must pay in advance for a visa that can cost $65 or more and entails a complicated application process.
Another deterrent for families has been a regulation barring children under 12 from entering Bali because they cannot be vaccinated. That rule will be lifted on Sunday.
Tourists arriving from the 19 nations, including China, India and Japan, must arrive on flights directly from their countries of origin. But most countries on the list, especially those in Western Europe, do not offer such flights.
Among those listed is the tiny European country of Liechtenstein, with a population of 38,000. Yet Indonesia excluded nearby Australia, whose travelers once flocked to Bali.
The regulations also are not easy on airlines. Indonesians traveling to Bali from overseas must fly first to Jakarta, leaving only non-Indonesian travelers to fill the Bali flights.
So far, no airline has scheduled a flight to bring tourists to Bali from abroad, according to a Bali airport spokesman, Taufan Yudhistira.
“We hope the government will re-evaluate the regulations,” said Rai Suryawijaya, Bali chairman of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association. “It is not productive when we are open but nobody is coming. If we are really open, we should make it easy.”