The tourist island of Bali has been the star attraction for Indians visiting Indonesia. However the 17,000 island archipelago country of Indonesia is keen to promote other destinations as well in order to distribute its tourism’s benefits to different parts of the country. With close to 1.5 million Indians visiting the city-state of Singapore annually, Indonesia sees huge opportunity to woo these travelers to parts of the country which is in close proximity of Singapore. Moreover Singapore is well connected with cities across India, and offers connectivity to 14 destinations all over Indonesia as well, and therefore presents Indonesian tourism opportunity to lure these travelers to other parts of its vast archipelago.
“Singapore’s proximity to Indonesia’s Batam and Bintan Island, just about 45 minutes ferry ride, presents us with huge opportunity to target a strong captive travel market. We want to tap into the Indians coming to Singapore. Singapore is connected with cities all over India. In short, if you come to Singapore, then please experience another destination. Not only Batam is very close to Singapore, but one can avail a whole range of services including ferry ride, food, spa, for as low as SGD 33 on week days,” said, Nia Niscaya, Indonesia’s Deputy Minister of Tourism Marketing.
“This is one of the best places for MICE as well as post-events. There are so many MICE events in Singapore, and then they have post events that includes Batam because it is close, hotels are cheaper as is food, with world-class services and exciting fireworks. There is room to grow,” Niscaya further added.
India probably emerged as one of the most resilient tourism source markets for Indonesia after the vast archipelago nation was hit by a series of natural disaster last year. Indonesia had registered a record 500,000 Indian tourist arrival and a robust 29 per cent year-on-year growth in 2017. Encouraged by this growth, Indonesia set an ambitious 40 per cent growth target in 2018 that it looked on course to achieve until a series of natural disaster affected the its inbound arrivals. And despite the tsunami and earthquake that affected the overall inbound arrivals to Indonesia, India has still delivered a double-digit growth in tourist arrivals to the country.
According to Niscaya, 540,000 Indians have already visited the Indonesia from January to November, registering 11 per cent increase over the same period the previous year, and about 8 per cent increase over the whole of the previous year number that was 500,000 in 2017. December figure was still awaited when Niscaya spoke on the sidelines of the SATTE 2019.
In terms of destinations, most of the Indians, 40 per cent, coming to Indonesia are coming to Bali, including holiday makers as well as honeymooners. Bali is also attracting Indian weddings. Some 30 per cent Indians are coming to Jakarta, mostly business travelers and 25 per cent, mostly tourists, are coming to Batam and Bintan islands.
Sidharto Suryodipuro, Indonesia’s Ambassador to India said, “We are working with our Indian colleagues in the government. Now we are working with industry also for doing flights between Indonesia and India. A number of Indonesian carriers are flying to India, but we are waiting for Indian carriers to fly to Indonesia directly. Remember this is a market which is growing by 20 or more per cent so the opportunities are growing and there is good business for everybody all around.”
