The
island of Bali has long been characterized in
the West as the last "paradise" on
earth a traditional society insulated from the
modern world and its vicissitudes, whose inhabitants
are endowed with exceptional artistic talents
and consecrate a considerable amount of time
and wealth staging sumptuous ceremonies for
their own pleasure and that of their gods -
now also for t1me delectation of foreign visitors.
This
image is due in large part of course to the
positive effect Bali's manifold charms have
on visitors, but we should recognize that it
is also the result of certain- romantic Western
notions about what constitutes a "tropical
island paradise" in the first place. Moreover,
we need to understand that Bali's development
into a popular tourist destination has been
the result of specific actions and decisions
on the part of governing authorities.
Colonial
beginnings
To
become an important tourist destination, Bali
had to fulfill two conditions. Firstly, an island
which had previously been known mainly for the
"plunderous salvage" of shipwrecks
and "barbarous sacrifice" of widows
on the funeral pyre had to instead become an
object of curiosity for Westerners in search
of the exotic. Secondly, the island had to be
made accessible. Barely a decade after the Dutch
conquest of the island around the turn of this
century, both conditions were met.
It
was in 1908, just after the fall of Bali's last
raja, that tourism in the Indonesian archipelago
had its beginnings. In this year, an official
government Tourist Bureau was opened in the
colonial capital of Batavia, now Jakarta, with
the aim of promoting the Netherlands Indies
as a tourist destination. Initially focusing
on Java, the Bureau soon extended its scope
to Bali - then described in its brochures as
the "Gem of the Lesser Sunda Isles."
In
1924, the Royal Packet Navigation Company (KPM)
inaugurated a weekly steamship service connecting
Bali's north coast port of Buleleng (Singaraja)
with Java (Batavia, Surabaya) and Makassar (now
Ujung Pandang, on Sulawesi). Shortly there after,
the Kpm agent in Buleleng was appointed as the
Tourist Bureau's representative on Bali, and
the government began allowing visitors to use
the rest houses or pasanggrahan originally designed
to accommodate Dutch functionaries on their
periodic rounds of the island.
In
1928, the KPM erected the Bali Hotel in Denpasar
- the island's first real tourist hostelry -
on the very site of the puputan massacre and
mass suicide of 1906. Following this, the KPM
also upgraded the pasanggrahan at Kintamani,
which from then on hosted tourists who came
to enjoy the spectacular panoramas around Lake
Batur.
Early
visitors to Bali sometimes arrived aboard a
cruiser that berthed at Padangbai for one or
two days, but more often aboard the weekly KPM
steamship via Buleleng. Passengers on this ship
usually disembarked on Friday morning and departed
aboard the same boat on Sunday evening, giving
them just enough time to make a quick round
of the island by motorcar. The number of people
visiting Bali in this way each year increased
steadily, from several hundred in the late 1920s
to several thousand during the 1930s.
With
the landing of Japanese troops at Sanur in 1942,
tourism in Bali came to an abrupt halt, and
recovery after the war was slow. In fact, right
up until the late 1960s, Balinese tourism was
severely hampered by the rudimentary state of
the island's infrastructure and by unsettling
political events in the nation's capital. Yet
President Sukarno adopted Bali as his favorite
retreat (his mother was Balinese) and made it
a showplace for
state
guests. Eager to use the fame of the island
to attract foreign tourists, he undertook construction
of a new international airport in Tuban and
the prestigious The Grand Bali Beach Hotel in
Sanur - the latter financed with Japanese war
reparation funds. Opened in 1966, and rebuilt
in 1994, the Bali Beach remains a major landmark
and the tallest building on Bali.
The
master plan
When
General Suharto became President of the Republic
in 1967, his New Order government rapidly moved
to re-open Indonesia to the West. This move
coincided with a period of high growth in international
tourism, and from this time onward tourism expanded
rapidly in Bali.
This
development was the direct result of a decision
made by the government in their First Five-Year
Development Plan (Repelita 1, 1969-74), primarily
in order to address a pressing national balance
of payments deficit. Bali's prestigious image,
formed during the prewar years, meant that the
island naturally became the focus of tourism
development in Indonesia.
Accordingly,
the government heeded the advice of the World
Bank and commissioned a team of French experts
to draw up a Master Plan for the Development
of Tourism in Bali. Their report, published
in 1971 and revised in 1974 by the World Bank,
proposed the construction of a new 425-hectare
tourist resort at Nusa Dua and a network of
roads linking major attractions on the island.
With
the Master Plan's official promulgation by Presidential
Decision in 1972, tourism was ranked second
only to agriculture in economic priority in
the province. Thereafter the number of tourists
visiting Bali each year grew dramatically, from
fewer than 30,000 in the late 1960s to over
a million by the early 1990s. And these figures
do not even take into account the steadily increasing
numbers of Indonesians visiting Bali - estimated
at over 1 million in 1995.
During
the same period, total hotel capacity increased
from less than 500 rooms to over 25,000 - about
half of them in larger hotels concentrated around
Nusa Dua and Sanur. The Nusa Dua project, in
particular, was supported by a substantial loan
from the International Development Association,
budgetary allocations from the government, and
access to cheap credit from state banks.
The
Master Plan was designed to attract tourists
in the upper-income range who were expected
to stay at luxury hotels. But it turned out
that a considerable proportion of visitors were
not of the target group but comprised young,
low-cost travelers staying in small home stays
and budget accommodations. As
the
Balinese have been quick to adapt to this unexpected
clientele - for years derogatorily described
as "hippies" - new resorts have sprung
up at places like Kuta, Ubud, Lovina and Candidasa.
Whereas the large hotels are owned and operated
for the most part by non Balinese companies,
many of them foreign, the smaller tourist accommodations
and related services in these areas are mostly
Balinese owned, with close links to the local
economy.
This
rather neat division between luxury and budget
tourist areas is rapidly changing. In 1988,
alleging the pressure of demand, the governor
designated 15 tourist areas around the island,
thus in effect lifting the regional restrictions
imposed by the Master Plan, which had prohibited
the building of large hotels outside of Nusa
Dua, Sanur and Kuta. Currently there is a frenzy
of investment an development all over the island
by Balinese as well as outside interests.
Tourism:
bane or boon?
One
significant result of all this has been spectacular
economic growth on Bali, so that the province
now has one of the highest average income levels
in all of Indonesia, with more automobiles per
capita in Denpasar than. in the nation's capital.
Another highly visible result has been the ever-accelerating
physical transformation of the island - as more
and more hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops
dot the landscape.
Not
all the changes have been positive, of course.
While the resorts employ local staff, they are
mostly low-skilled, and many of the tourist
dollars end up in Jakarta or overseas. Land
prices have soared in many areas, and rural
Balinese have often sold their lands to Investors
below market values. Agricultural output is
falling, as more and more farm land is given
over to tourism developments, and environmentalists
warn that if the present pace continues the
island will face critical shortages of water
on top of already serious problems of erosion
and pollution.
More
difficult to assess, however, is the impact
of tourism on Balinese society and culture,
and opinions on this subject are as contradictory
as they are passionate. Many foreign visitors,
after only a day or two on the island, are quick
to assure you that Bali is finished - almost.
The Balinese, so the story goes, have been thoroughly
corrupted by tourist dollars and the entire
island is up for sale. Authentic traditions
are being packaged to conform to tourist expectations,
legendary Balinese artistry is being harnessed
to create souvenir trinkets, and age-old religious
ceremonies are being turned into hotel floor
shows. In short, tourism is engulfing Bali,
and the island's culture cannot survive much
longer. So hurry up and see what you can next
year may be too late.
Other
observers, who deem themselves better informed,
will counter that this kind of apocalyptic attitude
is neither very accurate nor even very new.
Travel narratives penned during the 1930s tell
a similar tale, they say - these authors having
already persuaded themselves that they were
witnessing the swan-song of Bali's traditional
culture, while in fact that culture is as vibrant
as ever, with tourism now sparking a cultural
renaissance of sorts by providing the Balinese
with much needed economic outlets for their
considerable artistic talents.
This
view is reinforced, in turn, by deeply rooted
assumptions about the resilience of Balinese
culture. Indeed, the Balinese have been universally
praised for their ability to borrow foreign
influences that suit them while maintaining
their own unique identity. Witness, for example,
the blend of Hindu Javanese and indigenous ideas
that inspire current Balinese religious practices.
Today, so the argument goes, the Balinese are
coping with the tourist invasion of their island
by taking advantage of their culture's appeal
without sacrificing their basic values on the
altar of monetary profit.
What
the Balinese think
Faced
with such contradictory statements by foreigners,
it is interesting to examine how the Balinese
themselves feel about the tourist "invasion."
To tell the truth, the Balinese did not really
have a say in the decision of the central government
to trade on their island's charms in order to
refill the coffers of the state, and they were
never consulted about the Master Plan. Presented
with a fait accompli, they attempted to appropriate
tourism in order to reap its economic benefits.
In 1971, Balinese authorities proclaimed their
own conception of the kind of tourism they deemed
suitable to their island - namely a "Cultural
Tourism" (Pariwisata Budaya) that is respectful
of the values and artistic traditions which
brought fame to the island in the first place.
From
the start, the Balinese have evinced an ambivalent
attitude towards tourism, which they perceived
as being at once filled with the promise of
prosperity and yet fraught with danger. The
foreign invasion was seen to contain the threat
of "cultural pollution" which might
destroy those very traditions which provided
Bali's main attraction for tourists.
By
official accounts, Cultural Tourism has achieved
its mission, reviving Balinese interest in their
traditions while reinforcing a sense of cultural
identity. In actual fact, Balinese culture has
neither been "destroyed" nor "revived"
by tourism, and tourism should not even been
seen as an "external force" striking
Bali from the outside. Over the years tourism
has instead become an integral part of Balinese
society and economy. Even more important, moreover,
is the fact that tourism is only one of many
factors bringing about rapid change on the island.
Other equally important ones are mass education,
mass media and rising expectations among the
young.
In
effect, a new Balinese culture and identity
is now emerging that is an amalgamation of all
sorts of influences, from inside Bali as well
as from the outside. The major contribution
of foreigners has perhaps been to make the Balinese
aware of the fact that they are the lucky owners
of something precious and perishable called
"culture." Yet they are also increasingly
viewing this heritage as something that is detachable
from themselves something that can be photographed,
staged, promoted, reproduced and sold.