Lesson video

Hello, geographers.

My name is Mrs. Griffiths, and today's lesson is all about whether tourism can help reduce the development gap.

So we're gonna focus on a real-world example, which is the island of Bali in Indonesia, in Southeast Asia.

So let's make a start, let's go on our trip to Bali.

Okay, and our outcome for today is I can explain how the growth in tourism has helped to reduce the development gap in Bali, as well as the concerns about overtourism.

So we've got two sort of outcomes there that I'd like you to focus on.

We'll come back to that.

Our keywords for today are as follows.

So we have attraction, which is a feature of a place that makes people want to visit it or take part in an activity.

Culture, a way of life, especially general customs and beliefs.

Landscape, extensive area of land regarded as being visually and physically distinct.

Pollution, damage caused to water, air, etc.

by harmful substances or waste.

And overtourism, when too many people visit a place, so that it is spoiled and life becomes difficult for people who live there.

Those are our keywords for today, and we'll be using those as we go.

Our lesson breaks down into two parts.

We're gonna be thinking about what impact has tourism had on Bali's economy, initially, and then looking at have people and the environment benefited? So let's start on that first item, what impact has tourism had on Bali's economy? Indonesia is a newly emerging economy, sometimes we call it NEE, in Southeast Asia, with a rapidly growing population, and we can see here a map locating Indonesia in Southeast Asia.

So Indonesia's the green bit, and we have the capital, Jakarta, located on our map, and we can see that is south of the equator, but this country straddles the equator.

Now, if I click here, I can see that Jakarta is on the island of Java, which has a population of 158 million, so quite a densely populated island in itself.

And then here's Bali.

Bali is to the east of Java and has a population of just 4.

4 million people.

So quite different to Java.

So that's the part of Indonesia we're gonna be focusing on today.

Now, got a selection of photographs here for you.

What do you think are Bali's main tourist attractions? These are clues.

So I've got four clues.

Have a look, and then I'm gonna want you to explain to me in a second.

Okay, what did you come up with? Four possible clues there.

Let's have a look at what Bali's attractions are.

So millions of tourists travel to Bali each year for sandy beaches, surfer's paradise, we'll come back to that in a second, fresh seafood, Balinese culture, a volcanic landscape, and lush, tropical vegetation.

So let's think about those attractions in terms of the physical geography first, and then the human geography.

So tourists are drawn to the island by its natural beauty, long, sandy beaches and great coastal conditions for surfing are key to the development of tourism on a large scale from the 1960s onwards.

Lush, tropical vegetation and dramatic waterfalls, as we saw in that photograph, are also attractions of Bali's physical landscape.

The island's physical geography includes active volcanoes.

Mount Agung and Mount Batur are a must-see for the more adventurous explorer.

So that's its physical geography, what about its human geography? Well, there are some key reasons to visit Bali.

The province's famous rice terrace landscapes, known as the Subak irrigation system, were recognised as being of international importance by UNESCO, awarding Bali's rice agriculture the title of a World Heritage Site.

Bali is the only province where the majority of the population is Hindu, and Balinese Hinduism is famous for its arts, including the elaborate sculptures and architecture of historic Hindu temples.

We saw a hint of that in one of the photographs, didn't we? And people are attracted to this, and also traditional dance and colourful festivals that they find on Bali.

Buddhist temples are, yes, another attraction for holidaymakers seeking a break with a spiritual side.

And yoga retreats are popular on the island.

So wide range attractions there.

Now, more than 6.

3 million foreign tourists arrived in Bali in 2023.

That's a huge number, isn't it? Now Izzy asks, "Where did they all come from?" And we've got a table of data here, setting out the top five nationalities of foreign visitors to Bali.

And they're organised in terms of their order of most populous groups.

So we can see the Australian group of people is the largest share of foreign visitors in 2015, in 2019, and in 2023.

Foreign tourist numbers in Bali have been growing ever since the international airport was constructed in 1969.

Travellers can fly directly to Bali from many foreign airports, including Singapore, Sydney, and Seoul.

The growth of tourist arrivals accelerated in the 1990s.

However, the global pandemic led to a temporary decrease in numbers.

We can see that in our data in the table.

And there's been a significant difference, hasn't there, in terms of, we look at the Chinese share of the tourists visiting Bali, we've got 0.

69 million in 2015, ticking up to over a million in 2019, but that number is nowhere near that in 2023.

We've got.

28 of a million.

So Australians were the largest group of foreign visitors to Bali across that whole time period.

And also, it's also true for 2024, and they make up a fifth of the population of foreign arrivals.

Quick check for you then, what nationality makes up the largest group of foreign visitors to Bali? And if you said Australian, for all of those three years shown, you'd be absolutely right, well done.

Can you suggest an anomaly in this dataset? Well, I'm sure you've spotted that the Chinese dataset is different to some of those other datasets.

In 2023, the number of Chinese visitors to Bali was much lower than it had been pre-pandemic, not just a little bit lower, significantly lower.

So there's been a lag in terms of the rebound of Chinese visitors to Bali post-COVID pandemic.

Well done on that.

Let's have a think about Indonesia as a country as a whole.

So here we've got a stacked line graph, which is showing us the share of the population working in agriculture, manufacturing, and the service industries.

In 1990, most of Indonesia's workers were employed in agriculture.

So it's mostly an agriculture-based economy.

But by 2020, the majority were employed in service industries.

So you can see this from the graph.

That graph covers a period of time from 1990 to 2022.

And we can see that share of service industries, which is the blue sector in the graph, it's just ticking up.

The line is ticking upwards.

Tourism, a service industry, provides 5% of the country's income overall.

So, you know, a fair chunk.

And Indonesia's GNP per capita more than doubled from 1990 to 2022.

So 5% of the country's income overall in Indonesia.

I wonder what it is for Bali, we'll come back to that in a second.

But first, we've got a check here, what does this graph show? Can you remember what this graph shows? We've got two options there, A or B.

Pause the video, read them carefully, and then restart it when you want to check your answer.

And if you said this graph shows the share of Indonesia's workers employed in services has increased over time, you'd be absolutely right.

It's also true that Indonesia's income from services has increased over time, but we can't tell that from the graph.

We'd have to infer it.

Okay, so as I said, agriculture is still the main employer in Bali, so different to Indonesia, where most workers are working in the service sector.

But tourism provides 60% of Bali's income, 60% of Bali's income.

So we can see a lovely photograph there of the Subak irrigation system, those rice terraces we talked about.

That is a key kind of human geography attraction of the island.

Still a significant employer, but actually, tourism providing 60% of Bali's income.

So tourism has created new jobs in Bali, both directly in terms of staff working in hotels, looking after tourists, and taxi drivers and the like, tour guides, but also indirectly because tourist workers can spend more in local shops, local markets, they use services themselves.

And this has led to a boost in the economy.

Okay, bit more of a zoom in on Bali here.

We've got the island of Bali, as we've seen, which is just east of the island of Java.

And we've got a climate graph here for the capital of Bali, Denpasar, showing us that it has that equatorial climate with a relatively constant temperature across the year, much higher than we would experience in the UK.

And in terms of an average, remember this is the average, and then rainfall varying quite a lot across the year with a much wetter period from November to March.

And, of course, the high season for tourism is June to August.

No surprises there.

Now, if we take a section of Bali, the southern area of the island, this is the area where tourism really took off first.

So what I have on the screen now is a tourist map of the south of Bali.

And if we look at the legend, we've got some logos or icons we've used to locate some key attractions for tourists.

So, clearly, they have to use the international airport to arrive onto the island.

But then we have centres for surfing, we have Hindu temples and also Buddhism and Buddhist centres for yoga are a key attraction, as well as the capital city.

And there's a cultural centre there, which is Ubud.

If I convert that map into a map of places, so there's a map of tourist destinations in the south of Bali, it shows how close many resorts are to the international airport.

And if we focus in on just this part of the coastline, I can tell you that development began in the south at Kuta, on this stretch of coastline leading on to Seminyak.

And then, laterally, we have a new resort called Canggu.

And that's how this area of the coastline has developed.

Kuta was developed ahead of Seminyak, as I said, and the more recent tourist hotspot of Canggu.

Kuta was originally a fishing village.

And today, being within close proximity to the island's international airport, it is known for cheap accommodation and a lively nightlife.

But let's find out a little bit more about Canggu, which is our newly developed tourist destination on Bali's south coast.

There's an interesting photograph there of a religious shrine on a large rock on Canggu Beach.

And we can see in the background some surfers and some activity on the beach there.

Canggu is famed for surfing.

It has been rapidly transformed from a rural village into a bustling extension of that tourist strip I was telling you about.

By 2023, it had more than 300 hotels and other places to stay.

Now let's have a look at some aerial photography.

Perhaps we can investigate the rapid development of Canggu from above.

So here, I've been using Google Earth to have a look at historic imagery of this resort, and I've zoomed right in to an area of coastline.

Now, on the top left-hand side of the beach, we can see there might be some activity on the beach, maybe there's some umbrellas and things.

We can see some aspects of the built environment, but what looks like a relatively rural landscape.

Now, taking that aerial photography and adding some key features, that's gonna help us when we track the changes over time.

Remember, I showed you that photograph of the rock? Okay, I've highlighted where that rock is on our aerial photograph, and I picked out a couple of rivers and a road.

So watch those features change when we jump from 2012 to 2022.

So new construction has transformed this coastal area, and we're just talking about a period of 10 years actually doubling the area of the built environment.

So if I just highlight the areas of new, kinda newly built red roofs, we can see, we've got one here, we've got one there, we've got another large area here, and another here.

So, actually, the area of the built environment has doubled over time just in that 10-year period, transforming the environment.

This is economic change as a result of tourism.

Check for you here.

Can you complete this sentence using this aerial view of Canggu? So the sentence is, "From 2012 to 2022, construction something, the area of the built environment." Pause the video now, think about how to fill that gap.

And if you said, "Well, construction doubled the area of the built environment," you'd be absolutely right.

Well done.

Okay, practise task for you here.

So we have the data on foreign visitors arriving in Indonesia in that first column.

And then, in the second column, we have the subset of those that arrived into Bali.

And what I need you to do for the first question here is complete the table, so you need to calculate the percentage of Indonesia's foreign visitors that visited Bali.

Now I've got a hint for you here.

Start by dividing Bali's arrivals by those into Indonesia.

Tongue twister for me there.

Second question, describe how the importance of Bali for Indonesia's tourist industry has changed over time.

So you're gonna use those figures.

Okay, but our first question's definitely gonna need a calculator.

Then we have a third activity for you.

Can you make a list of three ways in which tourism has led to economic change in Bali? So we've got three things to do.

I suggest you pause the video now and restart it when you're ready to check your answers.

Okay, how did we get on? So question one asks you to complete the table and calculate the percentage of Indonesia's foreign visitors that visited Bali.

So we started off by looking at that gap on the row for the year 2000.

So we're thinking about, now clearly, in the year 2000, most of the visitors were arriving in the very first few months of the year.

So we started with a number more than a million, 1,412,839 visitors, and we divided that by the overall total for Indonesia, which was 5,064,217, to give us this number of 0.

2789.

Now you need to multiply that by 100 to get our results as a percentage.

So what we've then done with that result is rounded it to one decimal place.

So, with our example, we've rounded up to give us 27.

9.

So you can check your other answers there, was that how you worked them out? Secondly, I was asking you to describe how the importance of Bali for Indonesia's tourist industry has changed over time.

So you might have written, "Bali has grown in importance over time, as from 1970 to 2019, it has more than doubled its share of the foreign visitors that arrive in Indonesia." So we've got 18.

8% of foreign visitors that arrived in Indonesia went to Bali.

That was in 1970, but by 2019, that number was more than double, 39%.

So, more than a third, less than half, more than a third of people who arrive in Indonesia go to Bali.

Thirdly, I asked you to make a list of three ways in which tourism has led to economic change in Bali, and your answer might include the following.

New jobs in the service industry have been created, including work in hotels, shops and restaurants, as tour guides and taxi drivers.

Secondly, the construction of new infrastructure.

For example, Bali's new toll road and accommodation for tourists has developed the built environment.

When foreign visitors spend money, it boosts Bali's income.

And in this way, international tourism is like an export good or service.

Well done if you had something like that.

So we've done the first part of our lesson, and we need to look at the second idea, which is really about, beyond the economy, have people and the environment in Bali benefited? So this is kind of linked to the idea, I suppose, of sustainable development.

So if we look at our table here, we have some information here about quality of life.

And I can say that quality of life has improved over time in Indonesia.

So, even just over this period, from 1992 to 2022, we can see that in terms of the United Nations Human Development Index, Indonesia has improved over time, as has life expectancy quite markedly.

And Laura's here to tell us that a Human Development Index of 0.

7 or more means high human development.

So by 2022, Indonesia as a whole have reached a stage of high human development.

Now what about Bali, within that, the island of Bali? So I have some statistics for 2024.

It was ranked fifth of Indonesia's 38 provinces for its HDI score, and the score was 0.

7863, so it's definitely more than 0.

7.

Average high life expectancy was more than 75 years in Bali, which is higher than the average for Indonesia as a whole.

We can see it's more than four years higher.

So Bali's doing quite well in terms of its levels of human development, which is good news, perhaps positive in terms of tourism.

Bali had a, a last statistic here for you, that 13.

6 years of schooling that children can expect in Bali is higher than the national average.

So, as Laura says, tourism has been a major boon for Bali, not only for its economy, but also for its society.

So if we think about how tourism has led to these social benefits, we've started with growth of tourism, creating new jobs, which in turn creates more tax for the government, which in turn means the government can invest in more public services, roads, hospitals, and schools.

And I talked about that toll road as well, didn't I? So that actually feeds back into the growth of tourism.

What we have is this virtuous circle, or to some extent, we've got the multiplier effect at play in Bali, where tourism is leading to the growth of the economy and as long as some money is being reinvested from that tourism, that leads to better quality of life of all people, including tourists.

So Laura makes the comment that economic change has led to social change.

We've definitely seen that in Bali.

True or false then.

Tourism has helped to reduce the development gap in Bali.

Now, remember, I'm gonna need an answer, but I'm also gonna need you to explain why.

Yep, absolutely right, that statement is true.

Why? Well, we had, because Bali's HDI score has improved, is now described as having high human development, even higher than Indonesia as a whole, and life expectancy has improved within that.

Well done.

Izzy has a concern here.

"I think there must have been some downsides, given the huge numbers of people arriving, surely." Well, it's also true that tourism definitely has had negative effects, and we're looking at the positives, but the arrival of millions of foreign tourists each year has had some negatives.

So if we think about social impacts, on the negative side, dangerous driving of motorbikes and mopeds threaten lives on the roads.

Secondly, tourists dressed inappropriately at religious sites has caused offence.

So we've also had that kind of culture clash.

And thirdly, international cuisine threatens to erode local food culture.

So that's a problem, isn't it, particularly if the Balinese cuisine is part of what's attracting tourists to the island.

It begs the question, how sustainable tourism is.

There have also been some environmental impacts, and here's one.

Increased consumption of water has led to a significant lowering of the water table.

Now if you think about how you behave on holiday, I'm sure you like to go swimming, maybe you'd like to go swimming in a swimming pool, maybe you have more showers because you're swimming in a swimming pool.

Think about all that water being consumed by tourists.

That's having an impact on Bali.

So the water table is falling on Bali, which in turn is leading to an unreliable water supply.

So the water supply is tapped from underground.

So what do people do? Well, in fact, they just dig deeper wells to pipe water to the surface, but the downside of that, or a knock-on effect of that, is you've got an increased risk of saltwater intrusion, and therefore, poor-quality water and a kind of increased lease, scarce water resource on the island, which, again, begs the question, how sustainable is tourism on the island? Now, unfortunately, a falling water table's not been the only environmental impact.

Coastal landscapes are littered with rubbish, plastic rubbish.

Sewage systems are inadequate, leading to pollution of bathing waters with untreated sewage.

Again, think about, is that what the tourists have come for? It's a problem.

Izzy makes the point, "What is the government doing to sort these huge negative impacts on the environment out?" What's the government doing? And at a local scale, foreigners pay a tourist tax on entry to fund ongoing local investment in infrastructure, which is really important, isn't it? Numerous measures are being discussed by Bali's politicians to limit the growth of tourism.

For example, a ban on new hotels in the south of the island and its impacts, for example, a ban on tourist motorcycle hire.

But few of these measures that have been discussed have actually been put into action, but at least they're paying a tax, so they can invest those funds.

At a national scale, the Indonesian government is planning to kind of diversify its approach to tourism, realising that it's had all its eggs in very few baskets, and one of them is Bali.

So the government plans to develop tourism in five new destinations beyond Bali that have been chosen for their tourist attractions and their ease of access, and those are as follows.

So we've got those five locations.

The one that draws my eye is Yogyakarta, which is, of course, famous for the Buddhist temple of Borobudur.

Now that's somewhere that I'd really like to go, but if you look these places up, none of them are on the island of Bali.

They're in different locations across Indonesia, as I say, chosen for their ease of access, as well as their kind of natural tourist attractions, both linked to physical and human geography.

Okay, check for you.

True or false, tourism has brought benefits to the island of Bali and its people.

Is that true or false? I'm sorry, I've reread that incorrectly.

Tourism has only brought benefits to the island of Bali and its people.

I feel like I've given you a clue, but remember, you need to explain your answer.

And if you said false, you'd be absolutely right.

Can you explain why? Our explanation was as follows: "Bali's environment has been negatively affected.

A huge increase in water use has meant that its water table has fallen, risking saltwater incursion and a reduction in water quality, as water must be pumped from deep underground." Well done if you said something like that.

Maybe your answer was about plastic pollution, was it? Okay, practise task for you.

We've got two things to do here.

Firstly, can you list two ways that Bali's population has benefited from tourism? Secondly, can you sort these mixed online reviews for a resort in Bali into social, so I want you to write Soc, or environmental, can you write Env, impacts of tourism? So we've got one, two, three, four, five quotes there, that are kind of reviews of a particular resort in Bali.

I want you to think about whether they relate to social impacts or environmental impacts.

And I have a third task before you get started.

On balance, do you think tourism in Bali has helped to reduce the development gap? Which of these opinions is closest to your own and why? So you'd need to read those opinions of Izzy and Laura, and then decide which you agree with and why.

Okay, so now's a good time to pause the video.

Get some of this work done and then restart it, and we'll see how we've done.

Okay, so our first question was about, task rather, was listing two ways in which Bali's population has benefited from tourism.

Now you might have come up with the following.

We've got three, (chuckles) but you only need two.

Incomes have improved as many new jobs have been created directly in the service industries and indirectly in agriculture, for example.

The expected years of schooling for young people is now, on average, 13.

6 years, which is higher than for the Indonesian average and many other countries around the world.

At 75 years, life expectancy is higher in Bali than the rest of Indonesia, which might show that people benefit from better health services as a result of increasing taxes.

So well done if you've had two of those, you didn't need all three.

Secondly, sort these mixed online reviews for a resort in Bali into social and environmental impacts.

Now I'm sure you have guessed that these are mostly, when I say mixed reviews, these are mostly negative reviews, commenting on perhaps the fact that tourists, when they arrive, have been disappointed with an aspect of the resort.

So the first one says, "The warungs," which are small family cafes in Bali, "are almost gone, replaced with pizza, burger, and other non-Indonesian food places," so this is a social impact, an impact on the food culture.

Second one's an environmental impact.

"They're ripping out rice fields and building hotels.

Everywhere you go is the sound of construction." So that's an environmental impact, talking about noise pollution, I suppose.

The third one's a social impact.

"If you're driving a car or motorcycle, you are tempting fate." So that's a comment on the risks to health, isn't it? Risks to life of the dangerous driving on the roads and the Balinese politicians saying it's the tourists.

And then, another social impact, "Don't go for an authentic Bali experience." So again, a concern about the erosion of the local culture by kinda millions of tourists that are arriving from around the world.

And then, finally, an environmental impact.

"Trendy place and the waves are great," which sounds good, "but seawater is dirty." Oh, okay, so if I'm thinking about surfing at that beach, maybe I don't want to.

And then thirdly, "On balance, do you think tourism in Bali has helped to reduce the development gap?" Your answer might be as follows.

Let's have a look at our answer.

"There's no doubt that tourism has helped to reduce the development gap.

Many jobs have been created, and Bali's level of human development, according to its HDI score, is higher than average within Indonesia.

Also, the country as a whole has made great economic progress in the period in which international tourism has taken off in Bali since the 1990s, but," there's a big but here, "but its rapid growth has come at a cost to its culture and the environment, its landscape.

There are now concerns about pollution, water shortages, and saltwater incursion.

Overtourism is creating more problems than the money tourists bring in can solve, which is why I think numbers should be restricted." So there's the opinion.

Make sure you've got your opinion in there, and you've tied it in to, I suppose, what either of those two characters were saying.

But well done on that.

That was a tougher task, wasn't it? Thinking about weighing things up, the advantages, the disadvantages, how the place has benefited, and perhaps considering how Bali's benefited in the short term, but whether it will suffer more in the longer term.

So we're thinking about this idea of sustainability and sustainable development.

Okay, so in summary, what have we done? What are we looking at? Bali is an island province in Indonesia, which is a newly emerging economy, where international tourism has developed since the 1960s.

Tourism provides 60% of Bali's income, with many new jobs created.

Life expectancy in Bali is higher than average for Indonesia.

Bali ranked fifth of 38 provinces for human development, HDI, in 2024.

Tourism also has negative impacts on people and the environment, however, including eroding local culture, pollution, and reduced water supply.

40% of international visitors to Indonesia arrive in Bali, but the national government plans to develop five new destinations elsewhere to address overtourism in Bali.

Well, thank you for your attention today and all your hard work.

I think we've covered a huge amount and looked at a interesting case study, which hopefully will prove memorable for you.

And I look forward to seeing you again soon.