Lombok Aims At Phuket Tourism Market

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Posted: 28 Sep 2011 | 6:00 am

Bali's neighbor Lombok is seeing it's tourism market shift into high gear with the opening of its new international airport on October 1st.

Located in Tanak Awe in West Nusa Tenggara the Bandara International Lombok Airport and is able to handle widebody aircraft.

Currently flights to Lombok consist of domestic carriers and Silk Air internationally from Singapore, but this looks to change given the new facility.

While Lombok's numerous white sandy beaches have long been on many hotel developers horizon, as Phuket and Bali are crushed with mass tourism numbers, the island could see a fast acceleration of growth.

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In reply to Ben Johnson's comment, Lombok must have something to offer if he has chosen to reside there for the past 12 years.
From his description,Lombok, is like Phuket was 20 odd years ago, on my first visit, when parts of Patong Beach Road was just a dirt track.
I would just add, that just because someone is born in a simple house does not make that person primitive and does not require such derision.
My wife of 15 years is Indonesian, from a very simple, poor background, but through her own determination, is now an accomplished linguist speaking 6 languages.

Stuart, 30 Sep 2011 | 1:42 pm

This is a joke, right? I just returned from 1 month in Phuket, Thailand. Plus I live in Lombok as an American expat for 12 years. Except for the plentiful beaches, there is nothing in common between the two.
Puket is filled with all classes of hotels and all genre of restaurant. English is commonly understood and infrastructure is wonderful. All sorts of transportation abound and staff for most facilities are trained to a world standard. The tourism facilities plus local population used to seeing and working with tourists for many decades.
Lombok can have an airport, but the roads are terrible. Power outages are common, and water flows from the tap about 6 hours a day.
Most important, the people are still very primitive. Virtually all of the staff were born in bamboo huts on a dirt floor. Some hotels have their own schools to teach a maid how to make up the room. But it will take generations before the local people can adapt to being a tourist attraction.
One airport does not make nirvana or Phuket.

Ben Johnson, 29 Sep 2011 | 4:48 pm