The West Australian Newspaper, reported that 429,000 West Australians travelled to Bali in the last year, making it the busiest holiday destination out of Perth. Singapore had more people from WA visiting with 492,000 travelers but Singapore is also a business centre as well as transit stop for destinations in Europe and the rest of Asia. Besides Bali being the closest Asian resort island to Perth, according to The West Australian newspaper it’s also the thousands of resorts, which often have extraordinary deals tempting Aussies to our shores. A survey by The West Australian revealed that there are 1200 three or four star rated properties with rooms costing only up to $70 a night available for the first week of February. According to the booking.com website, Bali has 2876 licensed resorts and hotels. The number of hotels is also (apparently) driving the price down. (Except the reality is that there have always been cut price rooms in Bali during February. Ed). The head of the Indonesian Tourism Industry Association (GIPI) Bali, Ida BagusNgurahWijaya, told the Bali Daily last week that the occupancy rate was only 55 per cent. (And last week, the week before Christmas, is well known as one of the quietest weeks in Bali. Ed) Mr Wijaya said “the growth in tourist arrivals stood at the highest level in Bali’s tourism history”. But he warned that “this is not necessarily followed by an improvement in the quality of tourist facilities and services” and Mr Wijaya added that some new types of accommodation, such as rental houses, did not have operational or business licenses. The Bali provincial administration has targeted 3.1 million foreign tourists by the end of 2013.