Bali Continues To Promote Its Culinary Delicacies To Tourists

Jakarta (Antara) - The Indonesian tourist resort island of Bali, the country's biggest contributor to attracting foreign tourists, continues to promote its tourism potentials to draw more foreign visitors.

As a province that is popular among tourists and has several historic temples, scenic beaches, and panoramic views, such as rice fields and mountains, Bali had last year attracted 4.92 million foreign tourists, or about 41 percent of the country's total foreign visitors recorded at more than 12 million.

Bali also has different culinary delicacies to offer to visitors. Balinese dishes, include lawar, made from chopped coconut, garlic, chilli, pork, or chicken meat, and blood; and Bebek betutu, duck stuffed with spices and wrapped in banana leaves and coconut husks and cooked in a pit of embers.

Balinese sate, known as sate lilit, is made from spiced mince pressed onto skewers, which are often lemongrass sticks. Babi guling is a spit-roasted pig stuffed with chili, turmeric, garlic, and ginger.

To further promote its different cuisines, Bali will organize a three-day "Bali Interfood 2017" culinary exhibition from Thursday to Saturday on March 16-18, 2017.

The "Bali Interfood 2017" culinary exhibition is expected to boost the development of tourism in Bali, given that the food and beverage industry is one of the main tourism attractions.

"The tourism industry is inseparable from food and beverages. Besides displaying food and beverages, the exhibition will also present culinary, equipment, and packing technologies," chief organizer of the exhibition Daud D. Salim, who is also president director of Krista Exhibition, stated in Denpasar on Tuesday.

The Indonesian Embassy in Beijing is also organizing a culinary festival to promote Balinese cuisine on Mar 10-26.

The "Bumbu Bali Kampoeng Seafood" of Kedonganan, Badung District, a culinary center in Bali, has been cooperating with the Blue Bird Group to promote Balinese seafood to increase and attract foreign tourists who are keen to sample Balinese seafood.

An agreement between "Bumbu Bali Kampoeng Seafood" and the Blue Bird Group was signed by the Kampoeng Seafood owner Nyaman Sudana and General Manager of Blue Bird Group for Bali-Lombok Area Putu Gede Panca Wiadnyana last month.

According to Sudana, the cooperation was carried out as part of promoting the Kedonganan special seafood, which is expected to boost tourist arrivals.

Bali has been actively promoting its potential, particularly its special culinary services to tourists, through, for instance, the "Bali Interfood 2017" culinary exhibition.

The culinary exhibition will be held from Thursday through Saturday at the Bali Nusa Dua Convention Center (BNDCC) and will be attended by 110 participants from home and abroad.

Most of the participants will be hotel staff and distributors or buyers of culinary products. Hence, the exhibition is expected to become a meeting place for food and beverage companies and consumers from abroad and home.

More importantly, the event is expected to promote Indonesia's specialties. The exhibition will also include various events such as wine-mixing competition, cooking demonstration, and food seminars.

The exhibition, which is held for the third time this year, will also hold a pastry and bakery competition for the first time, given the high demand for cake and pastry experts.

Chairman of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) for Bali, Cokorda Oka Artha Ardana Sukawati, hoped that the exhibition would continue to be held in the future and would promote the local culinary items as well.

"The objective of the program is to boost the growth of local culinary development and the utilization of local products. This is important because cultural tourism not only concerns people but also food," he stated.

The Bali Interfood 2017 exhibition is also expected to produce new products and new culinary experts to support the tourism of the Island of the Gods.

Regarding that in Beijing, the Indonesian culinary festival is still ongoing. It is organized by the Indonesian Embassy in Beijing, in cooperation with JW Marriott Hotel and Garuda Indonesia Airlines, from March 10 to March 26 to introduce the archipelago's culinary specialties, particularly Balinese dishes.

"The people of Beijing and foreign tourists will have the opportunity to try various menus of the archipelago, especially Bali, for two weeks," Indonesian Ambassador to China Soegeng Rahardjo said while inaugurating the culinary festival at JW Harriott Hotel in Beijing on Friday night.

In order to guarantee the quality of foods presented during the event, JW Marriott Hotel invited three chefs from Bali, notably I Made Karyasa, Billi Oktorian, and Sandy Putra Permana and a bartender, I Made Adi Wirawan.

Bali had a booming year on the tourism front last year, as the island blew its foreign tourist arrival target out of the water.

Bali's target for the year had been set at 4.4 million foreign tourist arrivals, but the island surpassed that number in Nov when the number of foreign tourists starting from Jan 2016 reached 4,485,137, according to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS), Bali Province.  
   
In total, some 4.92 million foreign travelers had visited Bali in 2016, an increase of 23.14 percent as compared to 4.001 million  visiting Bali in the previous year. It is about 41 percent of the total foreign tourist arrivals in the country in 2016 which stood at 12 million.

The majority of tourists visiting Bali come from Australia, China, Japan, the UK, and India, according to the BPS Bali. The percentages of arrivals from these countries were 23.35 percent, 20.22 percent, 4.82 percent, 4.54 percent, and 3.66 percent, respectively. (WDY)