BALI, INDONESIA, February 17, 2024 (Al Jazeera): Taking place this year on March 11, Nyepi, or the “day of silence,” will see every light on the island turned off, transport come to a halt and the airport closed. Everyone, Balinese or not, will stay at home to give evil spirits the impression there is nothing to be found on the island. Hopes for the future are shared with the vast majority of Balinese, an island where the Hindu religion has survived and even thrived in the face of mass tourism. By 1930, tourist numbers reached several hundred per year. Last year, 5.2 million foreigners along with 9.4 million domestic holiday makers visited Bali, according to government data, and the island is developing at breakneck speed to cater to the demand. Nevertheless, Balinese traditional culture and religion have remained resilient in the face of the tourist onslaught, which is something of an anomaly compared with other tourist hot spots around the world.

“When local people entertain tourists, they adapt [to] tourists’ needs, attitudes and values and ultimately start to follow them. By following tourists’ lifestyle, young people bring changes in the material goods,” was the finding of a study on the impact of tourism on culture that was published in 2016 in the Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and Sports. “Balinese culture is not static,” I Ketut Putra Erawan, a lecturer in political science at Bali’s Udayana University, told Al Jazeera. “Time and time again it has shown it has the power to reinvent itself through the problems and opportunities we face; things like tourism, social media, individualism, capitalism and mass culture. It finds new ways to make itself relevant to young people in new times.”

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