VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The tourism sector is one of the pillars of the Indonesian economy and is a major foreign exchange contributor. The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) in its 2022 Tourism Trends and Policies report stated that in 2019, the tourism sector contributed 5.0% of Indonesia's gross domestic income (GDP). However, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 resulted in a decline in tourism's contribution to GDP by 56%, namely to only 2.2% of the total economy.

Post-pandemic, Indonesian tourism continues to improve the quality of tourism destination comfort and transportation access so that domestic and foreign tourist visits increase.

The Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy targets the number of foreign tourists visiting Indonesia to reach 14 million in 2024, from the previous 8.5 million visits in 2023. This was conveyed by Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Sandiaga Salahudin Uno in The Weekly Brief with Sandi Uno in Jakarta on Monday (9/10).

Minister Sandiaga hopes that this target can be supported by additional direct flights and the recovery of tourism in Indonesia as a whole. He also said that his side would focus on Australia and India as potential countries that bring in large numbers of tourists. In addition, the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy is also targeting other countries, such as China, Malaysia and Singapore.

These countries are indeed the main targets for foreign tourists visiting Indonesia, considering the number of visits to Indonesia. According to data from the Central Statistics Agency, which was released on August 1^st 2023, the visits to Indonesia in June 2023 were dominated by foreign tourists coming from Singapore at 16.41 percent, Malaysia 15.88 percent, and Australia 12.47 percent.

Meanwhile, according to Minister Sandiaga Uno's statement in August 2023, the number of tourists from India has overtaken China. It is recorded that India is in fourth position with the highest number of tourists to Indonesia, namely 6.48 percent. China is in fifth position, with a contribution of 5.88 percent.

It is known that the realization of foreign tourist visits for the January-August 2023 period reached 7.44 million visits or has exceeded the target set at the beginning of the year, namely 7.4 million. In the middle of the year, the government revised the target for foreign tourist arrivals to 8.5 million visits, 1.1 million visits higher compared to the target of 7.4 million set at the beginning of the year.

The target for foreign tourist visits continues to be revised and increased, considering the number of foreign tourist visits continues to increase. Of course, this is good news for the tourism sector and the Indonesian economy. However, this is also a tough task, because it needs improved quality of services in various tourism sectors, increase of the number of annual events, and improvement of the quality of tourism for human resources in related sectors.

There are still several months left for the Indonesian tourism sector to reach the target of foreign tourist arrivals in 2023.