How to read Bali’s tourism arrival and visitor figures

Bali’s tourism statistics answer a basic but often misunderstood question: how many visitors does the island receive? The figures depend on the measure. Foreign direct arrivals count international visitors entering Bali, while domestic tourism and airport passenger totals use different definitions and should not be treated as interchangeable.

What does Bali’s foreign-arrival figure count?

The Bali Government Tourism Office’s January 2026 data records 502,205 foreign direct arrivals, according to the office’s 2026 arrival dataset. The same dataset records 529,897 foreign direct arrivals in January 2025, and says the 2026 figure was 5.23% lower than the comparable month.

Why is that not the same as airport passengers?

Airport passenger totals include both international and domestic passengers, rather than only foreign visitors. The Bali Government Tourism Office’s 2024 tourism statistics record 11,884,433 total passengers at Bali’s airport, comprising 6,982,674 international passengers and 4,901,759 domestic passengers, according to the office’s 2024 statistics book.

How large is domestic tourism?

Domestic tourism is measured separately from foreign direct arrivals. Bali’s 2024 tourism statistics record 10,120,786 domestic tourist visits, according to the Bali Government Tourism Office’s 2024 statistics book.

What should hotels and tourism businesses use the figures for?

Arrival data indicates visitor inflow, but it does not by itself show how many nights visitors stayed or how full hotels were. The Bali Government Tourism Office publishes separate 2026 series for length of stay and room occupancy, while Statistics Indonesia’s Bali office defines tourism statistics as covering arrivals, overnight stays, expenditures, visit purpose and tourism-industry activity.

For planning demand, the relevant comparison is therefore between like-for-like measures: foreign direct arrivals with foreign direct arrivals, domestic visits with domestic visits, and hotel occupancy with hotel occupancy. Mixing them can make Bali’s visitor market appear larger or smaller than the underlying series supports.

Sources

• Bali Government Tourism Office
• BPS-Statistics Indonesia Bali Province