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**JAKARTA, May 24 (APD) – ** Indonesia obtained more pledges from domestic and international airlines to provide more frequent direct flights to various destinations across the country, highly expected to help the nation in complying with targets in the nation’s core industry of tourism.
To accommodate the pledges, Indonesia’s airport administrator of Angkasa Pura provides more facilities for planes operated by those airlines in several Indonesian airports. Among those facilities were RON (Remains Over Night) and international-to-domestic flight transfer (CIQ).
Indonesian Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said that the new facilities in airports for those planes were part of ministry’s steps to boost air connectivity, called 3A (Airport, Airlines and Air Navigation).
“Seventy-five percent of foreign visitors are using flights to come here. They are also digital savvy people as well. Their pledges greatly help us in securing half of 4 million flight seats we need to comply with our foreign visitor arrivals target this year,” Arief said here on Wednesday.
The ministry has set target to see 15 million foreign visitor arrivals this year and 20 million ones by 2019. Some 10.5 million flight seats were needed to comply with 2019 target, the minister added.
Besides providing RON and CIQ facilities, Indonesian airport administrator also provides various schemes for international airlines providing direct flight services to Indonesian destinations, including free landing, parking fees and promotional board placements in Indonesian airports served by those airlines.
“The schemes are particularly provided for airlines willing to open new routes to destinations across the nation,” he added.
The minister said that projects to renovate 9 airports are being carried out at present, expected to be settled this year. The projects covered expansion of taxiway, runway and terminal facilities for foreign visitors.
Among the airlines pledging new direct flights to Indonesian destination was the Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based Air Asia.
The airline is scheduled to commence its first direct flight from Japan’s Narita airport to Denpasar, the capital of Indonesia’s prominent destination of Bali province, on Wednesday.
Earlier this month, Australia-based budget airlines, JetStar, had also signed an MoU with the ministry to expand their flight services to more destinations in Indonesia.
Meanwhile, Royal Brunei airlines had also conveyed its plan to serve direct flight from Brunei capital of Bandar Seri Begawan to Lombok this year due to domestic increasing demands to travel to the Indonesia’s award-winning destination.
Indonesia saw increasing foreign visitor arrivals in the last few years, complied with its targets to welcome them in 2015 and 2016 at 10 and 12 million ones respectively.
In the first two months this year some 1.99 million ones were recorded to arrive in several destinations, dominated by visitors from China, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and Japan.
Indonesia expects to earn more than 24 billion U.S. dollars from foreign visitors arrivals by 2019. Tourism sector was identified to have greatest capabilities to provide direct positive economy impacts for the people in Indonesia.
New 10 destinations designed to par with the most-favored Bali in attracting foreign visitors are now being developed across the country to address the government’s tourism targets.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
