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Based on the data for the year 2014, Indonesia witnessed 237,990 Indians travelling to the island nation that significantly increased to 336,575 by the end of November 2016. Therefore, Ministry of Indonesia has set high targets to boost the current figures of Indian arrivals to Indonesia.
Speaking during the roadshow in New Delhi, Dalton Sembiring, Minister Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia, said, “We have set a benchmark of having 20 million tourist arrivals from across the globe by 2019. In order to achieve the same, we have improvised our visa policies for 169 nations. Also through promotional efforts like organising these roadshows in metro cities like Mumbai and Delhi, we want to connect with more and more people.”
The newly launched Jakarta-Mumbai connection via Garuda Indonesia with a frequency of three times a week from India to Indonesia demonstrates an optimistic start. Ashish Sharma, Sales Head- India, Garuda Indonesia, remarked, “As per the routes are concerned, we have already started our flights from November 19, 2016 to Indonesia from which our numbers to Jakarta and Bali are really good. Based on the Ministry’s initiation, we will soon commence flights to Delhi. The Ministry is also considering Chennai as an option for routing a flight to Medan in Indonesia.”
Indonesia’s key source markets include China, Australia and Japan. The average days spent by a tourist in Indonesia are about 4.8 days from other countries and from India, it is 3.6 days. India bags second in the position of tourist arrivals to Bali and number six in comparison to the world travellers. The Ministry is trying to have local tourism offices at different locations within Indonesia, under its tourism initiatives. They have conducted roadshows in Mumbai and Delhi and will be organising two more roadshows at Ahmedabad and Pune in August 2017.
Andriyatna Rubenta, Deputy Director of Sales Mission for Asia Pacific, Wonderful Indonesia, said, “Nowadays, the connectivity within the domestic route is what the Ministry is working on and install more options of local commutation for travellers. We are also focusing on connecting and promoting other Indonesian islands other than Bali like Sumatra, Sulawesi, Java and more.”
Rubenta also informed that the government is working on tying up with locals to provide homestay options for visitors as during the peak season the hotels witness heavy bookings and it becomes tough to accommodate tourists during the season. “We also count the number of rooms on availability in order to achieve our tourist target which includes both repeaters and newcomers. Since it’s not very easy to develop a luxury hotel within a short span of time, we are focusing on establishing and improvising the quality of our homestays. With the help of chain hotels, locally owned hotels and homestays, we will try to at least cater to 14-16 million travellers.”
Source: travelnewsdigest.in