The Bali bombs and the tourism development cycle

This paper analyses the impact of the Bali bombings on international visitor arrivals in Bali and compares this crisis with previous crises with reference to Butler’s hypothetical tourism area life cycle. The paper demonstrates that the Bali bombings had by far the greatest impact on international tourism visitation than any other crisis in the island’s history. Such was the severity of the decline in Bali that both national and local measures were taken to restore confidence. Important though these measures were, they do not fully account for the strong resurgence in international arrivals, suggesting that the destination has not yet reached consolidation in accordance with Butler’s hypothesis and that the strength of the resurgence owes much to the underlying trend of the development phase associated with the general picture proposed by Butler.