Bali Tourist Numbers Narrow Phuket Gap

In the battle of Asia's two premier destination resorts Bali is closing the gap on Phuket in international tourist arrivals. For the period of January through August 2009 Bali achieved 1.4 million which was in increase of nearly 13% from 2008.
Phuket tallied in at just over 1.8 million which was a decrease of 10% from 2008. It's important to note that both figures are only international arrivals, and Bali and Phuket have significant domestic arrivals.
Coming from the HICAP Hotel Investment Conference in Hong Kong two weeks ago and looking at market wide data, what is clear is out of all of the regions leisure markets Bali is the only market currently showing positive gains year on year in terms of occupancy and average room rate. At the same time for CBD/gateways it's only South Korea in the black on the numbers game as well, with the continued economic situation still hitting travel numbers.