Australian tourists travelling to Bali have reported confusion over visa websites in the lead up to their trip. It has been discovered that some tourists have clicked onto websites that are not the official Indonesian government visa website, and have unknowingly paid a higher fee than necessary.
The Indonesian government has an official visa website which makes it easy for tourists to purchase the necessary visas for their trip. This website is the only official site for purchasing visas for Bali, however, there are numerous other websites that are masquerading as the official site. These sites often appear at the top of Google search results, which makes them seem like official sites.
Posts from travellers who are confused by the social media pages for the popular holiday destination are flooding the websites.
In December, the Immigration Directorate General of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights in Indonesia made an announcement that they were looking into a website that might have caused confusion to tourists who had applied for their electronic visa on arrival (e-VOA). This has caught the attention of the Indonesian Government.
Widodo Ekatjahjana, the Interim Immigration Director General, warned travellers that the Indonesia eVOA website https://www.indonesia-evoa.com shows up in the top Google results, but it is much more expensive than using the official government website.