Bali finally opens to foreigners

Welcoming visitors: A shopkeeper waiting for customers at a market in Seminyak, Bali, as she looks forward to the return of international tourists. — Bloomberg

THE holiday island of Bali will welcome its first direct flight carrying foreign tourists for nearly two years, but just a handful of visitors will be on board to enter strict quarantine on arrival.

A Garuda Indonesia flight from Tokyo was scheduled to have arrived in Bali yesterday afternoon, with six foreigners and six Indonesians aboard, said Ida Ayu Indah Yustikarini, an official at the Bali Government Tourism Office.