Indian travellers help Indonesia resurrect in global tourism market

The last couple of months have been testing times for Indonesia as the South East Asian nation was facing good number of natural disasters. But, Nia Niscaya, Deputy Minister of Tourism Marketing, Ministry of Tourism, Republic of Indonesia (MoTRI), said that it was Indian tourists who supported the disaster-hit nation.

“Due to Mount Agung eruption last year in Bali, Indonesia has suffered a loss of over one million tourists but it was the Indian market that helped the country resurrect its position in the global tourism market. There was 30 per cent year-on-year increase in terms of Indian arrivals in 2017, emerging as the fifth largest source market for Indonesia,” she said.

“Lombok is not a popular destination when compared to Bali so the damage to the industry is comparatively less. In terms of numbers, we have recorded a fall of around 100,000 tourists in past two to three weeks in Lombok,” she said commenting on the latest earthquake in Lombak. MoTRI alone has a budget of approx USD 9 million for mitigations and provides every possible help to tourists in case of any natural calamity.

Niscaya is in India representing MoTRI at the Indonesia Sales Mission happening across Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad this month. While Mumbai and New Delhi Sales Mission took place on August 14 and 17, 2018, Bengaluru and Hyderabad will be held on August 27 and 29. For 2018, Indonesia has set a target of 700,000 Indian arrivals, of which 3,65,000 have already been recorded between January to August second week of 2018.

MoTRI has signed a joint promotion agreement with MakeMyTrip (MMT) to expand its marketing efforts in India. “Along with MMT, MoTRI is also committed to do joint promotions with Jet Airways, FCM Travel Solutions, Cox n Kings and few other B2B travel giants in India,” said Niscaya.