Mandalika, MotoGP and the south coast: what government money is doing to Lombok

What Mandalika is

The Mandalika Special Economic Zone sits on Lombok's south coast, east of Kuta Lombok, on a stretch of beaches and headlands that twenty years ago had a few surf camps and not much else. The national government designated it a priority tourism zone and built the Pertamina Mandalika Circuit, which has hosted MotoGP since 2022, along with the roads, hotels and services that a global sporting event needs. It is one of a handful of places Indonesia has chosen to develop deliberately as alternatives to Bali.

Why it matters beyond the circuit

A racetrack brings a race weekend. What it leaves behind is the infrastructure: a better road from the airport, power and water capacity, international hotel brands that would not otherwise have come, and a reason for airlines to add routes. Lombok International Airport now has direct flights from Perth and Darwin, and Scoot flies from Singapore. Visitor arrivals to the province of Nusa Tenggara Barat reached 2,382,008 in 2025, up 47 per cent on the year before. That is not all Mandalika, but Mandalika is why the world noticed.

What it means for the south-west

Sekotong, where Kinnara Capital has assembled its land, is on the other side of the island's southern peninsula from Mandalika: quieter, with white-sand bays, the small southern Gili islands and views across the strait to Bali. It benefits from everything that improves access to Lombok without sitting next to the circuit. The buyers who want a resort villa rather than a race weekend tend to want exactly that.

The pattern from Bali

I bought a resort in Kuta, Bali, in 2011, long after the government had built Bali's airport and the first wave of hotels. The people who did well in Bali were the ones who arrived before the infrastructure filled up. Lombok is at that earlier point, and the state investment in Mandalika is the signal that it will not stay there. The Lombok page sets out the island.

What government money does not do

It does not clean a land title, and it does not change the rules on foreign ownership. The land around Mandalika and Sekotong still has to go through the courts and the BPN before it can be sold with a certificate, and foreigners still own through leasehold or a PT PMA holding HGB. A buyer who confuses a government's enthusiasm for an island with a developer's diligence on a parcel is making an expensive mistake. The glossary and the guide for Australians cover the detail.

My read

Mandalika is the most visible thing on Lombok, and it is not where I am building. It is the reason the island will fill up, and the reason the quiet bays on the other side of the peninsula will not stay quiet forever.