The latest answer to the increasingly pesky question “when will foreign tourists come back to Bali en masse?” Appears to be “still not anytime soon,” as no international commercial flights have landed on the island since tourism reopened in October.

“So far, there are no scheduled international flights to Bali. No passengers on direct international commercial flights are therefore entered. [the province]”said yesterday Jamaruli Manihuruk, who heads the Bali office of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, which oversees immigration issues.

That’s not to say that there aren’t any foreign tourists in Bali, Jamaruli noted, as the vast majority of them arrived via Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta Airport. There have also been charter flights from overseas to Bali.

Bali reopened to international tourists in mid-October 2021, limited to fully vaxxed travelers from 19 eligible countries. Before the reopening, the island had only seen 45 international tourists arriving in the first 10 months of 2021.

Tour operators lamented Indonesia’s strict travel restrictions and called for exceptions to be made for tourists to Bali.

Bali welcomed 6 million tourists in 2019. The island, which relies almost entirely on the tourism industry, came to a halt when the pandemic struck.

Things started to improve towards the end of 2021, with domestic tourists arriving in large numbers to give the island’s economy a lifeline.