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The story behind the research
Where Is Bali Really Heading?
How One Question Became Six Months of Research
For the last six months, I’ve been trying to answer one question:
Where is Bali really heading?
Over the last six months, I’ve spent countless evenings, weekends and early mornings working on something that slowly became much bigger than I originally imagined.
What started as a simple idea became a six-month research project focused on one question:
Where is Bali really heading?
Over the past 12 years, Indonesia has become my home.
I first moved to Bali, where I lived for three years, before relocating to Jakarta to continue my career in hospitality. After two years in the capital, I returned to Bali, where I have now lived for more than a decade in total.
Experiencing both Jakarta’s dynamic business environment and Bali’s unique evolution has given me a broader perspective on Indonesia’s development and Bali’s changing role within it.
Over the years, I’ve worked with some of the world’s leading hospitality brands, helped develop destinations, built my own businesses, invested in property and watched Bali evolve from several perspectives—as a hotelier, entrepreneur, investor and long-term resident.
As a member of Entrepreneurs’ Organization Indonesia, I’ve also had the opportunity to exchange ideas with founders, investors, developers and business leaders who share a strong interest in Indonesia’s future.
Living and working here has given me a front-row seat to Bali’s transformation.
I’ve seen new destinations emerge, entire neighbourhoods change, international brands arrive, infrastructure improve and the island gradually evolve beyond being simply a holiday destination.
At the same time, I kept hearing very different opinions.
Some believed development was happening too fast.
Others believed the best investment opportunities had already passed.
Some focused only on tourism.
Others looked only at real estate.
The more conversations I had, the more I realised that most people were looking at just one part of a much bigger picture.
That’s what motivated me to start writing.
Rather than looking at villa prices or tourism statistics alone, I wanted to understand how all the different forces shaping Bali connect with one another.
Because that is how destinations really transform.
One of the biggest realisations during my research was that Bali isn’t simply growing.
It is changing its identity.
For decades, Bali has been known as one of the world’s most beautiful holiday destinations.
Today, I believe we are witnessing the beginning of another chapter—one where Bali is gradually becoming one of Southeast Asia’s most attractive places to live, work, invest and build a long-term future.
That transformation is not happening because of one single project.
It is happening because many different developments are moving in the same direction.
- The Bali International Hospital.
- International specialist clinics.
- New international schools.
- Major infrastructure investments.
- Luxury hospitality developments.
- Improved connectivity.
- Government initiatives.
- New business opportunities.
- New lifestyle communities.
Individually, these are simply projects.
Together, they tell a much bigger story.
Over the past six months, I’ve spent hundreds of hours reviewing official government planning documents, market reports, industry publications and public data, while combining that research with my own observations from living and working in Indonesia.
The result is Bali in Transformation—a strategic outlook bringing together more than 350 pages of research and analysis across 22 chapters.
Unlike a traditional investment report or tourism outlook, this publication connects government planning, healthcare, infrastructure, education, hospitality, real estate, demographics and lifestyle trends to examine how they influence one another—and what that could mean for Bali over the next 10 to 20 years.
This publication is not about predicting the future.
No one can do that.
Instead, it is about connecting the dots and helping people see the bigger picture.
Whether you are an investor, entrepreneur, hotel owner, developer, policymaker, long-term resident or simply someone who loves Bali, I hope this research offers a different perspective—one that looks beyond today’s headlines and asks what Bali could become over the coming decades.
More than anything, I wanted to create something that starts conversations.
A publication that encourages people to think strategically rather than emotionally.
A resource that helps explain not only what is happening, but also why it matters.
This is an independent strategic outlook based on publicly available information, official planning documents, market research and my own analysis. The conclusions and opinions expressed are entirely my own.
For me, this is not the end of a six-month project.
It is the beginning of a much bigger journey.
My hope is that Bali in Transformation becomes more than just a publication.
I hope it becomes an ongoing platform where I can continue sharing research, discussing new developments, challenging assumptions and exploring how Bali is evolving over the coming years.
After more than a decade of living in Bali, I still feel the same excitement and connection to this island that I did when I first arrived.
If anything, that feeling has only grown stronger.
This publication is not meant to provide all the answers.
Its purpose is to ask better questions, connect the dots and encourage a broader conversation about where Bali is heading.
If it inspires people to think differently about Bali’s future, then every one of those early mornings, late nights and weekends will have been worth it.