Call to Stop New Hotel Projects in Bali
Beritabali.com reports that the
Bali Tourism Board (BTB) is recommending that the government of Bali
impose at least a temporary moratorium on the construction of new hotels
in Bali. Such a moratorium would, if implemented, require Bali's
regents and municipal mayors to freezes the issuance of new building
permits.
BTB concludes that earlier calls by the Bali's governor for a moratorium
on new hotels has been ignored by regional leaders who viewed the
governor's demand as lacking the force of law.
The chairman of the BTB, Ngurah Wijaya, said a moratorium remains the
sole way of halting new hotel developments in the face of the strong
desire by investors to commence Bali projects.
"Everyone wants to invest in Bali, everyone wants to own accommodation
in Bali; there must now be some limitation," explained Ngurah Wijaya.
Pointing to the limited carrying capacity of Bali in terms of
infrastructure, water supplies and electricity supply - Wijaya believes
now is the time to limit new hotels in Bali. Moreover, he argued that
the number of available room in Bali is now more than sufficient to meet
demand. Data supplied by Bali's Tourism Office calculates 46,000
commercial accommodation rooms exists in Bali.
Commenting separately, the head of the Bali Tourism Office (Kadiparda),
Ida Bagus Subhiksu, admitted that the one possible way to halt new
project construction is through the imposition of a moratorium.
"If viewed from the analysis of the number of rooms available, there is an obvious oversupply of rooms," said Subhisku.
The top government tourism official for Bali went on to explain that
calls for moratoriums have been made since 1993. Unfortunately, rules on
regional autonomy allow regents and municipal officials to ignore
instructions issued by a provincial governor. The final authority to
issue licenses for hotel construction lies on the regency level.
Source : http://www.balidiscovery.com/messages/message.asp?Id=6223
