Indonesia eager to make Hong Kong its hub to supply foreign visitors

By APD writer Maverick

**JAKARTA, June 6 (APD) ** – Indonesia would send a mission in the upcoming International Travel Expo (ITE) slated for June 15 to 18 in Hong Kong, eager to make the China’s region a hub to supply foreign visitors into the country, an Indonesian minister said on Tuesday.

To tap the huge potentialities from the event, Indonesia would open a grand exhibit themed Sulawesi traditional ship of Phinisi during the expo.

The Indonesian exhibit would be filled with cultural attractions, traditional food feasts and activities to further promote the nation’s destinations.

Speaking in his office here Indonesia’s Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said that as an area that holds various purposes, including financial service, tourism, investment and trade, Hong Kong has significant leverage and facilities that would eventually prompt foreign visitors to continue their vacations to Indonesia.

As a major tour destination, Hong Kong attracts 60.8 million foreign visitors annually, which most of them came from Indonesia’s ultimate tourism market of mainland China, the minister said.

Besides that, he added that Hong Kong airport provides frequent direct flights to Indonesian destinations of Jakarta and Bali, the ultimate gates for foreign visitor arrivals in the country.

“This is something that we want to expand, given the fact of low direct flights to Indonesian airports if compared with those of in Malaysia and Thailand. We would pursue solution from this problem in the upcoming ITE in Hong Kong,” the minister added.

Hong Kong is part of hubs from which Indonesia expects to gain benefit for its tourism sector. The other hubs were Singapore and Dubai, the minister added.

Hong Kong supplied 83,830 visitors last year, expected to grow further to 132,000 ones this year, the minister added.

Indonesia received 1.14 million foreign visitors throughout April this year, or 26.75 percent and 7.09 percent higher than in the corresponding period last year and a month earlier respectively.

Visitors from China dominated to the arrival figure, followed by visitors from Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and India.

In the first four months this year, Indonesia has welcomed a total of 4.2 million foreign visitors, or 19.34 percent higher than 3.52 million ones recorded in the same period last year.

“We saw significant increase each month. It makes us confident to accomplish 15 million foreign visitor arrivals this year and 20 million ones by 2019,” the minister said in his office, referring to the nation’s arrival targets in tourism sector.

Tourism has been set by the current government as the nation’s ultimate industry, replacing oil and gas, palm oil and coal. The sector is highly expected to earn over 24 billion U.S. dollars.

To address targets in the sector, Indonesia now develops new ten destinations which mostly provide maritime tour attractions across the country. Those new ten destinations were expected to par with the much-favored Bali in attracting foreign visitors.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)