Bukit Vista Bali Property Market: Proxy Indicators & Investment Trends 2025

Part 1: Setting Out & The Ayana Story

Jing: Today I’m going to go on another expedition, but this time I brought my helmet. Thank you, Alex, for that tip—I think it’s a good idea to ride around in Bali to protect my head and be a good example for those kids out there who are riding without a helmet. So we’re going to go in a different direction. We’re going to start here in Jimbaran and then we’re going to head north to Seminyak, Kerobokan, Denpasar. This area is pretty interesting—perhaps also pass by Kuta. Kuta is a good, good examination to discover some market insights there. So come along with me on this ride and we’ll examine each of these areas and we’ll correlate it back up to some general data that we see across the marketplace that are pretty insightful. All right, follow me on this trip.

Jing: Let’s begin here. This is a really good place to begin because it is the end point of Jimbaran. This is the Ayana Resort—see, it says Ayana. This is where we’re going to go heading north. It’s one of the southernmost points of Jimbaran and it’s a terminal point. And let’s talk about it. So the Ayana was not always the Ayana. Before it was the Ayana, it was actually a Ritz Carlton hotel. But why is it now called the Ayana?

Jing: So we’re going to drive along this street up ahead—it’s called Jalan Karang Mas. Jalan Karang Mas is part of the story of the Ritz Carlton-Ayana dispute. Context over how management and ownership companies work in Bali to build hospitality businesses. Let’s begin. So the reason this street is called Karang Mas is that it’s owned by a registered company called PT Karang Mas. This company was started by the founder Rudy Suliawan—Pak Rudy and I have met a few occasions in the past 15 years. He’s a really, really rich neighbor, you could say.

Jing: So Pak Rudy’s deal was this: he has a building—I think it’s called Midland Plaza in Jakarta in the central business district—and that building produces a lot of rent. So he took the money from the rent produced from that building and bought some land here in Bali with it ages ago, a long time ago. This is a common practice for tycoons and businesses to take what they’ve generated from cash-flow-rich businesses like collecting rent and investing it in land in Bali instead of holding it in repeat deposits, which of course over time everybody knows devalues.

Jing: So after buying this land, he started thinking about how he could get cash flow from his asset, and what he did was he built a hotel. The hotel was his own hotel, owned by the Karang Mas company, but he invited Marriott to operate the management and marketing for this new hotel. So Marriott introduced the Ritz Carlton brand to label and maintain the hospitality standards, but most importantly do the marketing and bring guests to the hotel.

Jing: So that all worked out pretty good until, well, one day Marriott got a better offer to manage a Bulgari hotel further down into the region. Now, Marriott being clever and a little bit cheeky decided that they would actually poach some of Pak Rudy’s workers that were working, employed by his company PT Karang Mas, to support the development of this new Bulgari hotel—which Pak Rudy did not own. In fact, it was a competitor. Pak Rudy was furious, as anybody would be, right? What are you doing stealing my employees and my management and offering it to create a competitor against myself?

Jing: So Rudy had none of that and he sued Marriott. He sued Marriott and won, and this is a case of extreme justice where they settled the court case in Maryland in the United States and Pak Rudy won $10 million worth of damages due to breach of contract, due to a non-competition clause. Okay, so happily ever after, right? Afterwards, Pak Rudy fires Marriott, as he should, and then apparently he gets in touch with this guy named Horst Schulze. Now, if my facts serve me correctly, Horst Schulze is the founder of Ritz Carlton, which he later sold to Marriott, but now he started his own company. And so Pak Rudy teamed up with the original founder of Ritz Carlton to then start Ayana through a new company called West Paces.

Part 2: Management Models & Karma Jimbaran

Jing: And that’s just one of many stories here in Jimbaran where this pattern of management ownership is very, very popular and it gained a lot of momentum in the 1990s, just before I came. By the time I came, this model had—what would the right word be?—it had evolved to a different kind of model, and I’ll show you an example of that.

Jing: So this management ownership model eventually came down to more affordable developments like this one right here—this is Karma. So what’s Karma? Karma Jimbaran—I happen to know quite a lot about because this was my first job in Bali. Karma Jimbaran was this: so the founder of Karma Jimbaran happened to be this Australian slumlord, ghetto god named John Spence. Now, I happened to work for John Spence for my first job and he was a self-made millionaire who had started in the music industry managing British acts like Bananarama and some other acts that I’ve never heard of before. But he learned the art of timeshare in Spain and then he brought it to Bali by way of Goa.

Jing: So he was kind of like this yuppie that came from being a hippie and he succeeded with building a company called Royal Resorts. Royal Resorts grew to be enormous—they took a lot of money from innocent people who didn’t know what a timeshare was and then refused to give them their money back when they complained. But John Spence tried to clean up his image by starting this—this is Karma.

Jing: So what Karma was, was actually an inspiration that drew from the work of Adrian Zecha. Adrian Zecha was another pioneer here in Bali who started Aman Resorts. Adrian is a completely different cast and character than John Spence for sure. Adrian comes from a very wealthy Indonesian family—he has contacts that are amongst the most, I guess, rich and privileged people in the world, and he’s true power. He is probably the most naturally well-connected person I’ve ever met. Most people are well connected because of their position or because of their job, but Adrian just happens to know everyone because I think he’s probably a hospitality god.

Jing: Yeah, so Adrian was doing extremely well with Aman Resorts, and so John Spence, needing an image upgrade, decided that he would take the Aman idea and bring it here. This is what Karma is. So Karma is a complex of about 30 luxury villas, all built by an Australian company called Grounds Kent. John Spence had enough money to hire the same architect as the Four Seasons did—Grounds Kent at the time was really pioneering this Balinese modern approach towards building properties that had Balinese roots but were more comfortable and more, let’s say, suitable for Western families.

Jing: And so they built these three-bedroom, four-bedroom pool villas all around this area and they sold them mostly to executives and higher-ups in the finance industry working out of Singapore or Hong Kong at the time. These were the primary buyers. These investors would come here loaded up with Christmas bonuses that they had just made back in the good old days in the 90s and also the early 2000s, and they would buy holiday properties with the bonuses that they would earn.

Jing: Now, I know this because I worked here for my first three months when I was in Bali, and the way this concept works is that the hotel is owned by the villa owners. You can think of it as kind of like a condo complex except instead of owning apartments, you’re owning a villa inside of a mini resort. So it worked really well and a lot of these resorts were built, but the problem was management. So all these owners had been seduced by a certain lifestyle, by a certain panache, by a certain, let’s say, desirability, but over time, the essence of what brings the community together was challenging.

Jing: And you can see inside Karma these days there’s some units that are literally falling apart because the owners have lost interest in maintaining the pretty high maintenance fee. Let’s continue. Oh, this beach is called Muaya Beach, by the way. A lot of people call it Jimbaran Beach—that’s not accurate. So Muaya Beach is named after this temple—this is Pura Muaya, you see, it’s called Pura. There it is.

Part 3: Tourism Proxies & Food Supply

Jing: Coming up on another area up ahead that’s a pretty good proxy indicator for rental activities here in Jimbaran, but actually more of a proxy indicator of tourism activity here in Bali. The reason is because this is on the bucket list for almost every single traveler who comes to Bali, which is this: these are the seafood cafes located here in Jimbaran Beach. And although there’s many of them, this is the main one, this is the central hub. This area gets packed at night and depending upon how busy it is, you can get a pretty good idea of how, let’s say, the influx and the ebbs and flows of tourism is functioning in Bali.

Jing: The one that I usually check is this one—it’s called Menega Cafe, it’s the legendary Menega Cafe. And here’s a fun proxy indicator: they usually have to set aside a reserve of coconut husks before their nightly barbecue because they go through so much. So the pile of coconut husks there can be a proxy indicator for how much activity they expect, which can be a proxy indicator for how many tourists are likely to arrive in Bali compared to other days. So you see a bigger pile of coconuts, that’s a good sign that today might be a peak season travel day here in Bali.

Jing: So everybody needs to eat, and so where does this food come from? Well, if you’re staying in a hotel, most likely the food is coming from here. If you’re staying at a hotel in South Bali, there’s a high probability that this wholesaler, which is Lotus Enterprises, is supplying your steak, your cheese, your alcohol, all these items. And the reason they are such a big supplier is because they’re one of the few places that have industrial-scale cold warehousing here, you see it, right? So that’s it. So what you’re seeing here are delivery trucks that are distributing cold storage supplies that have been brought over by ship to Surabaya.

Jing: Surprisingly, the ports in Bali are not big enough to actually receive some of the imported items that foreigners like to eat—cheeses and wines—so it has to be offloaded on containers in Surabaya and then those large trucks are brought over here, and then these small trucks that you see here are partial trucks that payload those that have been broken down and then distributed to the rest of the hotels and large businesses around this area. Now, the reason why I’m here is because Lotus is the de facto winner of this—they do the majority of all the distribution as far as a large wholesaler is concerned. They’re probably one of the largest wholesalers here.

Jing: Now, I’ve got to move so that this truck can deliver its goods. So the takeaway is, if you ever come down here and you’re looking at, let’s say, tons of cargo being moved in and out, once again, just like the construction supply shops, it’s another good proxy indicator that, well, people are eating a lot of food. So once again, food doesn’t get ordered unless it’s been already purchased, so that’s indication of demand is happening.

Part 4: The Bypass, Group Travel & Changing Trends

Jing: I’m on the bypass now, and the one thing about the bypass going northbound—that’s southbound—is that the bypass is dead. There’s no successful stores along the bypass—none. My main theory behind why the bypass is not doing so well—and this is all the way from Nusa all the way up to Kerobokan—is this: I think group travel and tour bus travel has really declined. So back in the day, in these early travel days, there was a fairly large contingent of travelers who decided to travel by tour bus, but the problem with tour buses is that they’re kind of scamming. So instead of actually going to see what’s actually good in the region, they just bring you around to see these businesses along the bypass, which would commission the tour operators and sell useless junk to the herds of gullible travelers that were dumb enough to choose these unscrupulous travelers to manage their trips for them, which of course was cheap because you’re a shill that’s meant to buy stuff from useless things like civet coffee, birds’ nests, all of this worthless crap.

Jing: And of course, anybody who knows anything on social media probably already exposed all the dirty secrets behind that industry and kind of killed all the major businesses that were, you know, favorable on the bypass for tour bus operators. So that industry has come and gone in Bali now. I think what’s happened is that the landlords are not adapting quickly enough to this change in reality, which means that the margins that they can expect for rentals have to go down—they just have to go down, right? Because nobody is leasing out these lots of land on the bypasses, nobody even wants to stop here, everybody just wants to go to their destination and not waste time on these mediocre stops that are pretty much right next to the highway and don’t really add any value at all to a holiday in Bali.

Part 5: Airport Junction, Souvenir Shops & Notary Traffic

Jing: I always take a bearing here at the airport junction because it usually should be crowded—it’s disturbingly empty right now for a June. So what typically happens is that when a flight arrives to Bali, and if flights are arriving every, let’s say, 15 to 20 minutes, which is normal, then this entire roundabout will be super congested because you’re literally offloading about, what is it, about a thousand people an hour into this junction, of which most will be using private transportation, which then puts it at around, well, I guess, 30 cars per minute coming into the junction. But clearly there’s a lot fewer than 30 cars per minute coming into that junction right now, as you can see. Yeah, this junction is really empty for June 2025—doesn’t look like really a peak season. And up ahead too, there’s usually a lot of congestion as people make it through, and then also that’s fairly lightweight right now. So uncongested means no peak season.

Jing: Okay, I’m at another strategic proxy indicator. This place is called Keranjang, and what they do is they sell this thing to domestic travelers called oleh-oleh. This is a culture of getting gifts for your colleagues and your family and everybody who you didn’t bring to Bali with you. It’s a standard practice amongst domestic Indonesian travelers to get some oleh-oleh for people back home. So if you take a look at the amount of traffic and, let’s say, activity here, you can get a good idea of what the domestic consumption is in Bali. So as there’s more domestic travelers coming to Bali—there’s only about five of these major shops—Keranjang is one, but the major one is actually called Krisna. And Krisna has two locations: there’s one here on the bypass just a few kilometers up the road and another one that’s located closer to the airport in Kuta. So if you drive by and you see tour buses and you see tons of people, then that’s a good indication that, once again, peak season has arrived.

Jing: Now, peak season for domestic is slightly different because those will fall on national holidays in Indonesia, like Lebaran, other major Muslim holidays, and Buddhist holidays—although, wait, Balinese holidays don’t count because nobody from the major cities comes to Bali on Balinese holidays. But mostly the big Muslim holidays and Christian holidays, you’ll get a lot more domestic travelers coming in, and the way to spot them is to see if there’s any activity in the parking lots here.

Jing: Okay, so behind me right over here is Krisna. This is one of the larger and more major souvenir shops, and they’re packed, actually, so their parking lot’s much, much more full. I guess it’s a Pareto—you know, most people, if they are going to look for souvenirs, they’re going to want to go to the best one, and clearly I think Krisna is probably the better one compared to Keranjang.

Jing: This alleyway is actually really special because of this guy right here. You can see how many motorbikes are parked outside, and if you look up closer to that wall, you’ll see that sign right there—ding! That sign says “Notaris Eddy Wirata.” So Eddy Wirata I happen to know very well because when I first started in Bali, I was a real estate agent and we would bring deals that we had for people, for buyers who wanted to buy villas and land, all the way to Eddy’s office here in—I guess this is Kuta. So Eddy’s office would process the material and legal agreements, and that’s how the ownership structure was done.

Jing: So here’s the thing: because so many people trust Eddy, whenever you see, let’s say, Eddy have a full parking lot outside like the one you see here, it’s an indication that business is probably good. Now, Eddy does not use AI and Eddy doesn’t even use Google Docs—Eddy uses pieces of paper. So granted that maybe many of these motorbikes could probably be replaced with software if notaries decided to modernize, but the fact is that if you see a busy office for the notary, it’s a good sign—it’s a good sign that there’s probably somebody buying and transacting a property here in Bali.