Indonesia to woo Singaporeans to enhance tourism

Ranoh Island, Batam

Indonesian Tourism has identified Singapore as a tourism hub for the year 2019, as it seeks to benefit from 7,200 flights a week from and through the island state. It was revealed by Arief Yahya, the Tourism Minister.

“I am saying that it is easier to fish in the neighbor’s pond that has already has a lot of fish. There are 11 million potential tourists, who we can encourage to come to Indonesia,” said Arief in Jakarta on Thursday.

The initiative is stated in the Tourism Ministry’s program as part of the effort to achieve the targeted 20 million tourist arrivals in 2019. Singapore is said to have responded positively to the idea.

The tourism promotion packaged introduced by the Batam and Bintan islands last year were a huge success, which could sold around 700,000 tourism packages within three months. Arief said the success of those Hot Deals could be repeated.

Bintan Island

“Singapore was the main market for the Hot Deals promotion, which offered discounts of up to 60 per cent from Monday to Thursday. This year, we target to sell 1 million tourism packages through Hot Deal drive”, added Arief.

Arief said three tourism programs had prompted a positive response from Singapore: making the country a hub for Indonesian tourism, jointly promoting the idea of cruise ships visiting Indonesia and investing in one of Indonesia’s 10 prioritized tourist destinations branded as the New Balis.

“With the three programs, we not only target Singaporeans and expatriates living in the country, but also tourists from China and India to be encouraged to come to the islands of Batam or Bintan,” he added.