JAKARTA – At Ora Beach on Indonesia’s Seram Island, framed by tropical vegetation and dramatic limestone cliffs, the waters are aquarium like and there’s nary an influencer with smartphone in sight. It is a Maldives experience, for a fraction of the price. 

Some 1,600km away in Bali – not that there is any direct flight – traffic snarls around temple corners, the air is thick with noise pollution from motorbikes, plastic trash is matted into gutters and the surge of visitors has, in many places, eclipsed the island’s deeper spiritual essence.

And yet, that is where the government is placing most of its tourism bets. Officials want Bali, about 1.5 times the size of Rhode Island, to be a holiday escape and everything else besides.

There are plans to establish Bali as a family office hub, an export centre for seaweed and President Prabowo Subianto in late June inaugurated the Sanur Special Economic Zone to develop medical tourism.

As Indonesia’s most internationally recognised destination, banking on Bali was a deliberate strategy to help the South-east Asian nation’s vital tourism sector recover in the aftermath of the pandemic.

But that approach is not paying off, with the province’s economic growth slowing as visitors’ spending declines.

Meanwhile, tourism operators in other parts of the country are crying out for investment.

Mr Irfan Muddin, who has run Ora Sunrise View Resort since 2018, has been lobbying local authorities for years to improve connectivity to boost tourism in Maluku province.

“An airport could be built on Seram Island that would enable direct domestic and international flights,” he said, adding that regional airfares should also come down.

Tourism in Indonesia – an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands – as a whole still hasn’t fully returned to pre-Covid levels, a milestone that Vietnam and Thailand are close to achieving. Bali itself however is suffering from overtourism, wi...