‘If you can’t afford it, you shouldn’t be here!’ That appears to be the new motto adopted by Indonesia’s tourism leaders who have developed a plan to rid Bali of its growing ‘begpacker’ population.
A ‘Begpacker’, for those unaware, are tourists usually found on the streets of Southeast Asia begging for money to fund their ongoing holiday.
That’s right, they’re not begging for money that’ll provide them necessities such as food, but funds for their travels. Click here for a more detailed description.
Image: Jared Rice/Unsplash
‘Wrong’ is how some might describe the behaviour of these begpackers while political leaders in countries such as Indonesia would call it as “problematic”.
Setyo Budiwardoyo, an official from Ngurah Rai’s Immigration Office in Indonesia, told media recently that ‘begpackers’ had become a growing problem for the country, particularly Bali, where he feels many are pretending to be broke.
He said that in the past, Indonesia has assisted foreign tourists by providing them with food and accommodation, but as numbers increase, there’s concern over the sincerity of their financial position.
Image: Raj Eiamworakul/Unsplash
As a result, the Southeast Asian country has decided to stop assisting and instead send ‘begpackers’ to their respective embassies.
“We have seen many cases of problematic tourists, lately they are either Australian, British or Russian. We tend to report these cases to the relevant embassies, so they can oversee their citizens.”
Setyo Budiwardoyo
Budiwardoyo continued, saying that he’d prefer not to give parts of Indonesia’s budget to people “who are pretending”.
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