In Reply to: hotels "expensive this year" posted by noni on Thursday, 1. March 2007 at 19:47 Bali Time:
Since bomb one hotels all over Bali have been offering 2 for 1's or stay and pay deals to attract tourists back to Bali. We Aussies (and the Japanese) are the only Bali holidaying countries that have not recovered back to pre-bomb Bali arrival numbers. Intererstingly though, it is countries that have not had high numbers to Bali pre or post bomb that are now streaming in and taking the place of the Aussie and Japanese tourists so we aren't being missed that much.
If Australia and Japan did get back to pre-bomb numbers Bali would be exploding at the moment (Garuda aren't making it any easier by cutting direct flights from BNE and ADL but thats another story I suppose).
So you would be mistaken to think that hotels must continue to discount in order to fill rooms. We all pray of course that nothing else happens in Bali and if it doesn't then kiss goodbye to discounts.
Maybe it's about time that the Balinese make a little money for a change, God knows they went through such a painful time these past few years. I have no problem paying double what I did in June 2004 for this years holiday if it means that families of hotel workers (many of whom have suffered reduction in wages and lay offs, get back to where they were pre-bomb one).
Also, whilst we read here of people whinging about the condition of some hotels maybe now some of those places will be able to afford to pay for badly needed renovations. As they say you can't have your cake and eat it too.