JAKARTA, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia's resort island of Bali is scheduled to celebrate the annual landmark yoga festival of Bali Spirit on March 24-31, promoting harmonious life of all mankind in the world, a tourism official said on Thursday.
Entering the 12th year, the Bali Spirit Festival will be featured with more attractions and spiritual healing sessions for participants who come from the world.
During the week-long event, participants can attend some 300 activities held in Bali Purnati Center in Ubud, head of 2019 Calendar of Events team in the Tousism Ministry Esthy Reko Astuty said.
Among the activities will be symposium, mass meditation, master class, breathing management training, self-development workshops, mind healing, traditional music and dancing performances.
"Through Bali Spirit, each participant could change their lifestyle into a better one. This changing may eventually affect their community or even in the world," she said.
The festival is a way to promote Bali's traditional philosophy of Tri Hita Karana that suggests harmonious and balanced life by respecting others, preserving the nature while worshiping the gods.
The festival, known as the world's fifth largest of its kind, is apparently benefiting tourism in Bali, Esthy said. Besides attracting significant number of foreign tourists, the festival has been providing lucrative income for the economy around the venue.
"This event was catered to thousands of foreign tourists in the past several years. We noted that the festival has generated some 9.1 million U.S. dollars of income for the economy of people around the event from 2013 to 2018," Esthy said.
Indonesia Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said the festival is originally designed to hone up participants' potential positive attitudes to make positive changes in their lives through yoga.
The event is apparently attracting more foreign tourists in the last few years as the participants always come again and bringing more of their relatives and friends interested with activities throughout the festival.
"Bali is very capable of holding this kind of event with its very beautiful surroundings and nature that fit and highly support the activities in the festival. This is what makes Bali Spirit Festival different from others in the world," he said.
