Bali's Tourism Is Growing, but Where Is Tourist Spending Going?

Throughout 2025, Bali received 6,948,754 international tourist visits, while its economy grew 5.82 percent, the highest in seven years, according to Statistics Indonesia (BPS) Bali Province. International arrivals were also up 9.72 percent compared with 2024, while domestic tourist trips to Bali grew 17.53 percent. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the accommodation and food-and-beverage sector generated value added of IDR 18.80 trillion, or 22.10 percent of Bali's regional GDP (PDRB).

These figures point to a growing market. For businesses, however, the size of that growth is not the only thing worth watching.

The more strategic question is this: as new demand flows into Bali, where does the spending go, who already has a relationship with the consumer, and who is best positioned to capture the value?

Digital nomads offer one lens for reading this shift. Their numbers are relatively small compared with overall tourist arrivals, but their patterns of residence and consumption show how travelers who stay longer can generate demand that spreads across many business categories.

In other words, the opportunity lies not merely in who the consumers are, but in the consumption ecosystem that forms around them.

From Tourist Visits to Everyday Consumption

There is no official figure for the number of digital nomads in Bali for 2025 or 2026. The most recent traceable estimate comes from CNA's reporting in May 2025: more than 3,000 people based on visa numbers, with arrivals in 2024 up 40 percent from 2023. CNA described the figure as a rough estimate.

Set against nearly seven million international tourist visits, this number is small. Digital nomads are therefore better read not as a market in themselves, but as a signal of a shift in demand patterns.

The E33G remote worker visa, for instance, requires a minimum income of US$60,000 per year from a foreign company. That income is then spent over several months in Bali. Part of this spending resembles that of temporary residents: monthly rent, coworking memberships, laundry, gyms, motorbike rentals, and daily meals.

Summarizing earlier literature, Andika et al. (2026) note that digital nomads regularly visit the same work-friendly cafés and laundries, unlike tourists who stay a few days and whose transactions are concentrated on accommodation, attractions, and souvenirs.

This difference matters for business.

Short-term tourists tend to create demand concentrated at particular points during a trip. Consumers who stay longer create more dispersed consumption routines:

accommodation → coworking → food → mobility → laundry → fitness → services

This means a single consumer can repeatedly activate many business categories.

For brands, this broadens the way a target market is viewed. Consumers are not just individuals to be reached, but part of a consumer ecosystem made up of many touchpoints and providers of their needs.

From Demand to Asset Value

This shift in demand is also visible in the property market.

Citing CNA, AirDNA, a provider of short-term rental market data, recorded around 83,500 rental properties in Bali, growing 20 to 27 percent per year. These properties serve a range of guests, from holidaymakers to remote workers. The figure therefore does not show how many are used specifically by digital nomads; it is better read as an indication of the scale of the asset market serving newcomers overall.

Canggu shows how demand can change the economics of an area.

CNA's reporting describes how the rice fields of Canggu have shrunk to small plots surrounded by buildings, while remote workers tend to prefer villas. Landowners with capital can convert their rice fields into rental villas. Owners without capital can sell their land to domestic or foreign investors. Economic pressure during the pandemic also contributed to these decisions.

The mechanism matters more than the identity of the tenant.

As long as the prospective income from villa rentals exceeds the yield from rice farming, land conversion is a rational choice for owners. Digital nomads are one source of the demand behind that prospect, alongside short-term tourists, property investors, and domestic migrants. Land conversion is also shaped by spatial planning and the housing needs of residents.

From a business perspective, this shows that growth in demand does not automatically create the same opportunity for every actor.

Owners who can build villas can earn recurring rental income for as long as demand lasts. Owners who sell their land receive a one-time payment up front, while subsequent increases in value pass to the buyer.

Access to assets and capital determines how much value can be captured.

Demand Alone Is Not Enough: The Ability to Capture Value Is What Counts

The same pattern appears among smaller businesses.

The 2025 Bali Province Tourism Statistics record 10,498 restaurants and eateries and 9,509 accommodation businesses, not counting laundries, motorbike rentals, and creative services.

Qosim, Rukmana, and Usup (2025) surveyed 120 owners and managers of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Bali, Yogyakarta, and Lombok, with 45 percent of respondents from Bali. A total of 68 percent reported an increase in monthly revenue since serving digital nomads. The same study also noted rising operating costs, intensifying competition, and local customers who felt marginalized when businesses prioritized digital nomads.

Andika et al. (2026) studied 150 MSMEs in Canggu, Ubud, Denpasar, and surrounding areas. The intensity of digital nomads as customers was positively related to business growth, with customer engagement, such as managing online reviews, as the strongest predictor. The benefits were greater for businesses that had already adopted digital payments and other adaptation strategies, while traditional businesses that relied on passing foot traffic gained less additional value.

Both studies used purposive sampling of businesses already serving foreign customers and measured performance based on respondents' perceptions. The results show associations, not causal relationships, and do not represent all MSMEs in Bali.

Even so, the findings point to one pattern relevant to business:

Demand becomes an opportunity only when a business has the capability to capture it.

In this context, digital readiness, customer engagement, and closeness to consumers can be differentiators.

Therefore, when looking at a consumer segment, it is not enough for a business to ask:

How big is the audience?

The next question is:

Who already has access to them, and who is equipped to serve them repeatedly?

Map the Value Chain, Not Just the Target Audience

The value capture framework helps reveal these differences.

Asset owners capture value through rent and rising asset prices. Businesses capture it through revenue. Workers capture it through wages. The government captures it through taxes and levies.

Each of these channels responds to demand through a different mechanism.

Asset prices and rents can follow market conditions, while minimum wages are set by regulation and do not move every time demand changes. The Bali Provincial Government set the 2026 provincial minimum wage (UMP) at IDR 3,207,459 per month, with the highest regency minimum wage in Badung, the location of Canggu, at IDR 3,791,002.57.

At the national level, the February 2026 National Labor Force Survey (Sakernas), as cited by Bisnis.com, recorded that workers in the accommodation and food-and-beverage sector earned an average of IDR 2.59 million per month, among the three lowest of all sectors. This national figure does not directly reflect conditions in Bali, but it shows that proximity to tourist demand does not automatically mean the highest wages.

This difference in mechanisms matters because it shows that the value created by a single demand stream can be held at different points in the ecosystem.

For businesses, this value chain can be read as:

Consumer demand
↓
Accommodation & property
↓
Food & beverage
↓
Mobility & daily services
↓
Local merchants
↓
Workers
↓
Government revenue

Not all of these points have the same access, capital, digital capability, or consumer relationships.

That is what determines who can turn demand into revenue, recurring customers, asset appreciation, or other forms of value.

The Government Also Captures Part of the Value

The pattern of value capture does not stop at businesses.

The Regional Office of the Directorate General of Taxes (Kanwil DJP) Bali collected IDR 13.07 trillion in tax revenue through October 2025, up 10.32 percent from the same period in 2024. The accommodation and food-and-beverage sector contributed IDR 2,085.02 billion, or about IDR 2.09 trillion (15.95 percent), with growth of 28.28 percent, the highest among business sectors, while the real estate sector contributed IDR 742.83 billion and grew 14.23 percent. These figures cover only central government taxes, excluding regional taxes on hotel services and food and beverages, which are collected by regencies and cities.

The Bali Provincial Government also has an additional channel through the foreign tourist levy (PWA) of IDR 150,000 per visit. Bali Governor Wayan Koster, as reported by Antara, said that realized PWA revenue in 2025 reached IDR 369 billion, below the revised 2025 regional budget (APBD) target of IDR 500 billion. Only about 34.8 percent of foreign tourists paid, measured against the Provincial Government's count of 7.1 million foreign tourists, which is higher than BPS Bali's data. Since August 2025, at least 150 accommodation businesses have also collected the PWA, for a service fee of 3 percent.

These figures show that the government also has instruments to capture part of the value from foreign tourist activity.

However, this capture capacity depends on the participation of other actors in the ecosystem. And government revenue is not the same as residents' welfare, which is determined by how those funds are spent.

For businesses, the point is not to judge who benefits the most.

The point is to understand that growth in a single demand stream can create several value channels at once.

What Does This Mean for Business?

Viewing digital nomads only as a target audience risks making a business focus too much on reach.

In fact, these consumers already sit within an ecosystem made up of accommodation, coworking, F&B, mobility, laundry, gyms, creative services, and other local merchants.

For this reason, there are four questions businesses can use to read the opportunity.

1. Where does demand move?

Map consumer needs from the beginning to the end of the consumption journey.

For digital nomads, demand does not stop at accommodation. Spending moves on to coworking, cafés, laundry, gyms, mobility, and creative services.

The goal is not just to know which categories are growing, but to understand how one demand activates others.

2. Who already has a relationship with the consumer?

Each node in the ecosystem has a different degree of closeness to the consumer.

Coworking spaces, accommodation providers, and certain merchants may meet digital nomads almost every day. This means they can serve as distribution and partnership points that sit closer to consumers' routines than activations that create only a fleeting contact.

For brands, the question is not only:

How do we reach this consumer?

But:

Who already reaches them?

3. Where does the capability gap lie?

Andika et al.'s findings show that businesses that adopt digital payments and other adaptation strategies gain greater benefits, while traditional businesses gain less additional value.

This opens up the opportunity to view the capability gap as part of the market opportunity.

For example, programs that help small merchants adopt QRIS, appear on digital maps, or manage customer reviews can deliver benefits on both sides.

Consumers get an easier experience.

Merchants gain the capacity to capture demand.

Brands gain a position between the two.

4. How is value measured?

Impressions, visitor numbers, engagement, and transactions answer how many people were reached.

However, for an ecosystem-based strategy, businesses can add metrics such as:

These metrics can also be more observable than trying to determine the size of the digital nomad population precisely, since there is no official figure for their numbers in 2025 or 2026.

Bali's Tourism Is Growing, but Where Does the Value Flow?

Economic growth and demand growth are not the same thing as the distribution of value.

Bali shows how demand from tourists, investors, domestic migrants, and digital nomads can activate a broader ecosystem. Each actor then holds a different position in capturing that value.

Asset owners capture value through rent and rising asset prices. Digitally ready businesses have more ways to capture demand. Salaried workers are more bound to wage-setting mechanisms, while the government captures part of the value through taxes and levies.

For businesses, digital nomads can be read as a source of demand that activates an ecosystem, not only as a consumer segment.

The strategic question therefore does not stop at:

"Who is our target audience?"

But expands to:

"Where does their demand flow, who already owns the relationship, and where can we create additional value?"

Bali's booming tourism market is therefore more than an audience opportunity.

It is an opportunity to understand how value moves through a market.

References

Andika, G., Rahaditama, M. W., Mardika, I. K., & Cahyadewi, P. E. K. (2026). Beyond tourism: How digital nomads drive stronger local business growth in urban Bali? International Journal of Financial Economics, 3(1), 1–18. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21128199.

Antara News Bali. (2025, December 26). Pemprov tetapkan UMK se-Bali 2026 dengan tertinggi Kabupaten Badung [The provincial government sets 2026 regency minimum wages across Bali, with Badung Regency the highest].

Antara News Bali. (2026, January 3). Gubernur Bali: Pungutan wisman selama 2025 capai Rp369 miliar [Bali Governor: International tourist levy in 2025 reaches IDR 369 billion].

Badan Pusat Statistik Provinsi Bali. (2026, February 2). Kunjungan wisman langsung ke Bali Jan–Des 2025 naik, dengan Australia menjadi negara asal terbanyak [Direct international tourist arrivals to Bali, January–December 2025, rise, with Australia the top country of origin].

Bisnis.com. (2026, May 5). Rerata upah buruh Rp3,29 juta per Februari 2026, ini sektor tertinggi [Average worker wage at IDR 3.29 million as of February 2026: here are the highest-paying sectors].

Dinas Pariwisata Provinsi Bali. (2026). Statistik Pariwisata Provinsi Bali 2025 [Bali Province Tourism Statistics 2025]. Pemerintah Provinsi Bali.

Direktorat Jenderal Pajak. (2025, November 27). Kanwil DJP Bali himpun Rp13,07 triliun penerimaan pajak hingga Oktober 2025 [DJP Bali Regional Office collects IDR 13.07 trillion in tax revenue through October 2025].

Qosim, N., Rukmana, A. Y., & Usup, U. (2025). The impact of digital nomad economy on local businesses: Study of MSME market changes in popular destinations in Indonesia. The Eastasouth Journal of Social Science and Humanities, 2(02), 113–118. DOI: 10.58812/esssh.v2i02.474.

Rayda, N. (2025, May 20). Kala digital nomad banjiri Bali: Warga tersisih, alam merintih [When digital nomads flood Bali: Residents pushed aside, nature cries out]. CNA Indonesia.

SWA. (2026, February 8). Ekonomi Bali tumbuh 5,86% di akhir 2025, pariwisata tetap jadi mesin utama [Bali's economy grows 5.86% at end of 2025, tourism remains the main engine].