02/17/2024
Old ways survive in Bali despite mass tourism, but for how long? Fantasia Travels has been taking tourists to Baki for over 20 years.
The Balinese anomaly
Putu’s hopes for the future are shared with the vast majority of Balinese, an island where a hybrid Hindu-Buddhist religion based on ancestor worship and animism dating back to the first century has survived and even thrived in the face of mass tourism.
By 1930, tourist numbers reached several hundred per year. Last year, 5.2 million foreigners along with 9.4 million domestic holidaymakers visited Bali, according to government data, and the island is developing at breakneck speed to cater to the demand.
The negative effects of such tremendous growth are illustrated in the murals of Balinese artist Slinat, who marries the iconic photographs of Balinese dancers with contemporary emblems like gas masks and dollar bills.
“These old photos were the first images used to promote tourism in Bali and convey that it is an exotic place. They kick-started tourism in Bali,” Slinat told Al Jazeera. “But then we had too much tourism and it ruined the exoticness of Bali. So I created this parody to express how much things have changed here since those photos were taken.”
Nevertheless, Balinese traditional culture and religion have remained resilient in the face of the tourist onslaught, which is something of an anomaly compared with other tourist hot spots around the world.
“When local people entertain tourists, they adapt [to] tourists’ needs, attitudes and values and ultimately start to follow them. By following tourists’ lifestyle, young people bring changes in the material goods,” was the finding of a study on the impact of tourism on culture that was published in 2016 in the Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and Sports.
Bali, Indonesia – At dawn, as the first shards of light dance over the rice fields in the seaside village of Seseh on Bali’s west coast, Putu and her husband Made, who like many Indonesians go by one name only, spend an hour reciting prayers and distributing small palm leaf baskets containing of...
