Bali vs Phuket: which Asian resort island will win the race to restart international tourism? Domestic tourists arrive at Bali airport last July. Photo: AFP
While scores of countries are reintroducing border closures and travel restrictions to mitigate fresh waves of Covid-19, Southeast Asia s two most popular resort islands - Bali and Phuket - are in a race to open to international tourism.
The stakes in terms of potential benefits and risks are high. The economies of both have been on life support since the coronavirus was declared a pandemic a year ago.
In Bali, which attracted 6.3 million foreign visitors in 2019, GDP shrank 9.3 per cent year on year in 2020, while the unemployment rate of 5.6 per cent is nearly four times higher than the previous year. Phuket, which welcomed a whopping 9.9 million foreign visitors in 2019, saw its economy contract 6.1 per cent last year, and 80 per cent of its tourism-related businesses go bust.