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It’s official: Every Asian destination will now be known as ‘The new Bali’

Travel industry officionados in Australia have today confirmed that every destination in Asia will now be known as 'the new Bali' for marketing purposes.

Travel industry officionados in Australia have today confirmed that every destination in Asia will now be known as ‘the new Bali’ for marketing purposes.

The decision comes off the back of low cost carriers using Bali in recent months as a positive, confidence building example to Australians of what they can expect from going on holiday to pretty much any Asian country.

Just six months ago, Vietnam was the first Asian country declared ‘the new Bali’ as part of a low cost carrier’s launch with a ‘Sambal hot flight special’ to Ho Chi Minh City.

vietnam-karryn

Ho Chi Minh, Kuta… You could be anywhere.

A marketing spokesperson for the airline who didn’t want to be named said;

“Let’s face it, Bali and Vietnam are basically the same anyway to most people. The global appeal is tropical beaches, cheap ice cold beer, woodcarvings, fake merchandise and swanning around in glitzy resorts. Most travellers probably won’t notice they’re not in Bali anyway when they get there. Marketing is all about making things sound essentially the same but different at the same time”.
ricepaddy-bali

When is Bali not Bali?

He went on to say;

“For example, we had a bloke from Dandenong on a flight with us last week from Melbourne to Ho Chi Minh City who told us he was really looking forward to seeing the rice terraces up in Ubud.”

“We saw him a few days later on his return flight from Vietnam and he said “Ubud was amazing”, but he hadn’t realised that the Mekong River went all the way through Bali too which “blew his mind.”

“Which is my point exactly. He didn’t care. The only thing he was disappointed about was that he couldn’t find a Bintang anywhere, but they did have Beer Saigon. He said it still tasted like beer anyway. He was happy.”

cebu-karryon

Cebu’s beaches are the same as Bali’s. Full of sand.

More recently, The Philippines has also been labelled ‘the new Bali’ with some travel industry publications suggesting that ‘Cebu’ in the Philippines is basically more or less the same as trendy hipster hot spot ‘Canggu’ in Bali.

“Yep, I’ve been there myself and they’re almost identical.” Said 19 year old Cassandra ‘Coolio’ Cah, Editor at Large for Sydney based Travel Magazine ‘Try Hard’.

Ms ‘Coolio’ Cah went on to say;

“I mean like, Cebu is the newer version obviously but like it’s kinda hard to tell the difference if you squint your eyes and pretend you’re somewhere else like. Do you know what I mean? Like they’ve even got their own Potato Head Beach Club in Cebu. It’s called Tomato Head Beach Club. Like it’s like a newer, more bagus version of Potato Head in Bali but basically they’re like totes the same same but different.”
potatohead-karryon

You say tomato, I say potato…

China and Japan are said to be the next Asian destinations lined up to be marketed as ‘the new Bali’ with industry experts suggesting there could be a few “cultural challenges” but nothing that “can’t be overcome”.

“At the end of the day” said one expert, “People just love Bali for what it represents to them. So the more destinations we can make sound the same, the more chance we have of selling people holidays to visit them. Actually to pretty much anywhere in the world. The US and Europe are still not out of the question so we’re looking at all options.”

What do you think? Is every Asian destination worthy of being called ‘the new Bali?’ Or should we just actually talk about them as separate countries with their own merits, cultures and differences?

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a KarryOn Comedy article and is obviously satire. It should in no way be taken seriously, unless you want to that is.