On Monday, Minister of Tourism Sandiaga Uno said he would review the Bali governor’s request to revoke the visa-on-arrival for Russians and Ukrainians.
“The request to stop the visa on arrival policy must, of course, be reviewed … Maybe (the number of) those who are acting up and causing problems are not significant, but we will discuss this in detail with other stakeholders,” said Mr Uno in his weekly press conference with the media.
In recent weeks, several cases involving Russians and Ukrainians in Bali have made headlines.
A Russian was deported for working illegally as a photographer last week. He entered Bali with a visa on arrival in February but misused it by working as a photographer.
Several other Russian nationals have also been deported for overstaying.
Separately, one Ukrainian was deported for falsifying documents to purchase an Indonesian national identity card for 31 million rupiah (US$2,017).
Indonesia currently issues visa-on-arrival for citizens from more than 80 countries.
Earlier in March, the Bali statistics agency said that more than 330,000 foreign tourists visited the Island of the Gods in January.
Most of them were from Australia, followed by tourists from Russia, India, South Korea and Singapore.
Bali welcomed about 22,000 people from Russia in January, an increase of about 12 per cent compared to December last year.
Read the full article here
