While booking hotels for a recent trip to Bali, Indonesia, I was shocked to find that all my favourite hotels were fully booked well in advance.
I ended up at a new hotel in Nusa Dua which must have at least 300 rooms plus private villas costing upwards from US$200 a night for regular rooms with breakfast. It was pleasant, everything you would expect of a new high-end resort hotel. But when I wanted to extend my stay, I was told that ALL rooms and villas were fully booked. Tried other hotels in Seminyak, again all costing upwards of US$200 a night, and I met with the same answers.
I checked Agoda and Bookings.com and found that most of the high-end hotels and resorts had limited availabilities while the less costly ones presented plenty of options.
Well done Bali, I thought! Well done, Indonesia too! They have gotten rid of that Bali associated as being a backpackers' haunt to one befitting of the Island of Gods.
Arithmetics kicked in. For every 5,000 rooms charging US$200, the island makes US$1 million each night. And US$200 is just about the starting point per room-night at high-end hotels and resorts.
With all that money flowing into Bali, I am surprised they haven't done more to improve on tourist experience overall, especially after recent renovations at the Ngurah Rai airport.
One still has to walk or take the bus to the terminal after de-planing from a domestic flight. The Customs lanes are scarce although passenger gates have increased. Baggage carousels are designs from the 1980s. The limited travelators at Departure are narrow, often spoilt or not switched on. The car park is haphazard. Passenger drop-off at Departures and pick-up at Arrivals are chaotic and inadequate. So much for an airport greeting the thousands of high-spending tourists arriving each day. My guess is corruption is the culprit for this incomprehensible absurdity; for they had well-trained Indonesians and expats behind the multi-million dollar design and planning of this.
Island-wide, traffic is chaotic like all other cities in Indonesia. Taxi drivers can, and do, stop anywhere to negotiate with tourists (who still think they need to bargain), while traffic behind that cab tails back at least half a kilometre.
At the seemingly high end hotels and resorts I stayed in, wifi internet were free but I struggled to view clips on Youtube. Even emails with large attachments required a lot of patience.
What is the mystery of this Island of Gods, where tourists are charged prime dollars for services which fall short? Why would idiots like me flock here, whenever a few days' break crop up in the calendar, I asked myself?
My conclusion? It's everything that Bali is.
I remember that moment many years ago when I stepped out of Ngurah Rai airport and a total sense of relaxation hit me when I breathed the Balinese air.
Being Asian, I love the food in Bali, especially the chili. My family loved the sun and the carefree atmosphere. The hospitality and the smiles -- although you will soon realise that you're talking to air hats once they attempt to respond, hotel staff and waiters/waitresses being the biggest culprits. The shopping's great especially for those who are from, or used to, $-denominated economies.
When I look back at my grievances, Bali isn't that different from Bangkok or Phuket in Thailand, or Port Dickson and Langkawi in Malaysia, or the Gold Coast in Australia. Even my recent travels to the UK and Europe had their share of disappointments when it came to money spent versus perceived satisfaction received.
My only conclusion from all these is that it's an impossibility to please fellow human beings 100% of the time. Our moods change, hence tolerance levels. What we like one moment may be detested the next.
Pleasing fellow human beings is an impossibility, I concluded.
Unfortunately, I am stuck in hospitality industries, and can only look to my disappointments for pointers as to how to run my operations better.
