SINGAPORE, 15 April 2020: Tourism and resort operators on Bintan island are closing shop as very few tourists are now venturing to the Indonesian island a one-hour ferry ride from Singapore.
A check of Booking.com showed at least 70% of the 36 Bintan properties usually available on the booking site are no longer open for reservations this month. A check of booking availability at the end of April showed just eight resorts continued to accept bookings.
Agoda flagged a few resorts with its newest guarantee Easy Cancel for bookings in April a programme that allows you to book and still have the option to cancel up until 24 hours before arrival.
Local authorities on Bintan last week said as many as 15 companies involved in tourism had stopped operations due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Most of the island’s tourism is sourced in Singapore, and due to the tough “circuit breaker” measures that require Singaporean to stay home, Bintan has lost most of its bookings.
As the biggest source of tourist arrivals in Bintan, Singapore is now imposing restrictions on travellers coming into the city-state, and that also includes travellers returning from Bintan. They are required to show an electronic health declaration on arrival among other requirements once they disembark at ferry terminals.
Ferry services have been reduced leaving the terminal at Tanha Merah in Singapore with just one departure scheduled every Wednesday at 1110 until further notice.
Meanwhile, Landmarks, a company that operates resorts in Malaysia and Indonesia, has temporarily closed its resorts and leisure operations in the two countries. The company is the owner and operator of Treasure Bay Bintan Island in Indonesia.
The group told Star Online that health risks caused by the pandemic and the containment measures imposed by the governments resulted in a huge negative impact on resorts.
Bintan is the fourth-largest contributor to tourist arrivals in Indonesia, welcoming 750,000 foreign tourists in 2019. Around 260,000 of them came from China, and that market collapsed last January.
Travel and flight restrictions have since left Bintan with hardly any tourists leading to job losses and the closure of resorts.
