Bali gets the heat back by Adi Arifin

After a desperately slow business pace last year in related to the second bomb attack, Bali is now taking the heat back. Bali is experiencing a near-record in hotel and flight bookings for upcoming Christmas and New Year holidays, reflecting a never ending interest to the repeatedly voted the world best island destination. Even the ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin is taking his pre-Christmas holiday in the Island.

The local flag carrier Garuda Indonesia operating ten daily services from Jakarta to Bali is fully booked for Christmas - New Year period. They even have added an extra 2,000 seats to meet the high demand. Local private airliner flying Jakarta - Denpasar route confirmed similar situation.

International routes flied by Garuda are also hiking up. Flights from Japan to Bali are almost fully booked while there is still six weeks away to the season. Singapore Airlines which operates three daily return services between Singapore and Bali confirmed their optimism in getting double-digits increase, compared to the last year, in number of passengers traveling from Singapore to Bali for the upcoming Christmas - New Year holiday seasons.

Leading hotels in Nusa Dua and Kuta are in average recorded 85% of occupancy for the period, the remainder will be well sold in the upcoming weeks. The surge does not only affect those popular areas. Matahari Beach Resort at the north shore, with prices soaring up to $466 expects a full house.

The new style of holiday accommodation, private villa rentals, has started identifying the surge even well before. Villa Rental Bali, one of Bali leading holiday rental agents representing virtually all the luxury villas on the island, confirms that large private villas, especially beachfronts are well booked. "We started running out of villas since two months back, especially the large ones with four bedrooms or more. Exquisite properties like beachfronts and those at Uluwatu clifftop booked out even earlier. Most are aftering anywhere near Seminyak, however, as none are any longer available, we start sending guests to remote areas like Candidasa and Amed" confirmed Wisna Wedhana, the managing director of the agency. "They mostly research the internet and find that options are running out, so they do not really care about price any longer" she continued.

Recreation operators are no exceptions. Bali Adventure Tours who has hosted celebrities like Claudia Schiffer and David Beckham, receives thriving bookings both through their website and a wide network of travel agents, for its wide range of activities from elephant safari of taro to adrenaline taking like white-water rafting, paragliding, and mountain-biking.

Most holiday makers make between three to seven days. Hotels, mostly those with Russian clientele expect longer stays. However villa rentals show different pattern. Clients stay in a range of seven days to two weeks. "Mostly ten days, but some go up to a month" confirms Villa Rental Bali.

Any plan to make a holiday in Bali? Hurry up, both flight and accommodations are running out quite quickly. For those thinking of villa accommodation, only small private villas with one or two bedrooms are still available, if you come in large group, the chance is hosted in a number of small villas next to each others in a complex, or Villa Rental Bali still has a beachfront four bedrooms villa at Amed, scuba diving capital of Bali. Get in touch with them at Villa Rental Bali www.villarentalbali.com