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Sandiaga Uno on the Indonesia Outlook 2024 event in Jakarta - 

Voinews, Jakarta - Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy/Head of the Tourism and Creative Economy Agency (Menparekraf/Kabaparekraf) Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno said that the tourism sector in 2024 is predicted to be bright. The achievement is better than this year even though the magnitude is not yet like 2019 or before the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The achievement of foreign tourist visits to Indonesia this year is around 11 million or above the target of 8.5 million. In 2024 we are targeting 14 million foreign tourist visits or still below the 2019 achievement of 16.11 million. "We are optimistic that in 2025 the tourism sector will recover as before," said Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Uno in the Indonesia Tourism Outlook 2024 entitled "Investment Opportunities and Challenges for Sustainable Tourism" which was held by the Tourism and Creative Economy Journalists Forum (Forwaparekraf) at the AOne Hotel Jakarta.

Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Uno said that to achieve the target of 14 million foreign tourist visits by 2024, we are faced with a number of challenges, especially the uncertain global situation. A number of international institutions predict that various challenges at the global level in 2024, such as geopolitical conflicts, economic turmoil and environmental crises, could affect sectoral growth, including the travel industry.

Meanwhile, the relatively strong economy in the Southeast Asia region during 2023, driven by an increase in tourist visits which shows a positive trend, is good news which will have an impact on increasing tourist travel in the Asia-Pacific region, including to Indonesia.

This can be seen from the acceleration of revival in Indonesian tourism this year. We initially set a target of 7.6 million foreign tourist visits, then increased it to 8.5 million, in the third quarter (January-September) 2023. "This year we will get 11 million foreign tourist visits," said Sandiaga Uno.

According to a release received by Voice of Indonesia on Saturday (02/12/23), Sandiaga Uno reaveled that to achieve this target, various challenges must be faced together, including how to strengthen flight connectivity from foreign tourist source countries with the availability of sufficient airplane seats.

Apart from that, the distribution of foreign tourists to various leading destinations in Indonesia is still a challenge. Bali as a magnet in attracting foreign tourists is expected to spread to other destinations in Indonesia.

For this reason, the government is aggressively promoting 'Bali beyond', especially to the five super priority tourism destinations (DPSP), Lake Toba, Borobudur, Mandalika, Labuan Bajo and Likupang.

Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga explained that Indonesia has good economic growth so it is hoped that this will boost people's purchasing power and increase domestic travel by 2024, targeting 1.2-1.4 billion.

"Even though the global economy is projected to slow down, the national economic growth trend is predicted to continue to be strong in 2024, reaching 5 percent according to the IMF and OECD. "This figure is quite high compared to the projected economic growth of strong countries such as China and the United States, although slightly lower than India," explained Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Uno.

The government continues to encourage domestic tourism as a national tourism force. For this reason, various obstacles or challenges must be overcome immediately, including making plane tickets affordable for tourists so that they can travel. Moreover, during the Christmas and New Year (Nataru) holidays there will be a surge in the movement of foreign tourists.

"Eid, school holidays, Christmas and New Year, collective leave and long weekends are momentum to increase the movement of foreign tourists and increase contributions to achieving targets for foreign tourists," said Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Uno.

Director of Marketing and Consumer Experience of PT Aviasi Wisata Indonesia (Persero) Maya Watono said that the five DPSPs are new attractions for tourism to attract foreign tourists. The government will aggressively promote 'Bali beyond' in an effort to encourage the spread of tourist visits from Bali to the 5 DPSPs.

Maya Watono sees that apart from the distribution of foreign tourists, the challenge that must be overcome immediately to achieve the target of 14 million foreign tourists by 2024 is flight connectivity. To achieve the target of 14 million foreign tourist visits by 2024, flight connectivity is a major concern.

"We are trying to provide sufficient aircraft seats to support the target of 14 million foreign tourists," he said, stating that with an average load factor that has reached 70 percent, around 20 million seats are needed, while currently available are around 11 million aircraft seats. He hopes that by 2024 the shortage of 9 million airplane seats will gradually be filled.

The General Chair of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) who is also the Chair of GIPI, Hariyadi Sukamdani, said that people's purchasing power is still an obstacle in increasing domestic tourism. "Our challenge is to improve people's purchasing power next year. "For this we need joint efforts so that it doesn't stagnate," said Hariyadi Sukamdani.

Hariyadi Sukamdani hopes that the government together with domestic airline business players can reduce the price of domestic airline tickets, which until now are considered by the public to be expensive and unaffordable for tourists. "We positively welcome the government's efforts to encourage foreign tourists to travel by land. "For example, from Palembang (Sumatra)-Java-Bali, which is currently connected by a toll road," said Hariyadi.

Hariyadi said that the important thing is to synchronize joint promotional programs between the central government, regional governments and tourism industry business players in order to increase tourist visits.

Hariyadi gave the example of the Kharisma Event Nusantara program (KEN, including the Kasodo event on Mount Bromo, East Java, which has great potential to attract tourists, because it is not promoted enough, so it does not attract many tourists to the tourist destination of Malang Raya and its surroundings. Even though the Kasodo event is packaged and promoted well, it will bring in many tourists and increase hotel occupancy there.

Director of Strategic Studies at the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy/Baparekraf, Agustini Rahayu, said that there would be many new tourism trends in the coming year.

"Essentially, tourists will look for new experiences. Tourists will abandon conventional concepts and look for new experiences," said Agustini Rahayu.

Meanwhile, Director of Check-In Asia, Gary Bowerman, said Indonesia must start paying more attention to the Chinese and Indian markets. These two countries are predicted to be the markets with the highest growth next year.

"How to find the right marketing strategy to attract Chinese tourists from traveling only within the country, to markets in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia," said Gary.

Chairman of Forwaparekraf, Pasha Ernowo, said that his party chose the theme "Investment Opportunities and Challenges for Sustainable Tourism" in this outlook activity considering that Indonesia, with its abundant natural wealth and supporting geography, is the time to focus more on developing sustainable tourism.

On the other hand, investments that prioritize sustainability and environmental sustainability in the tourism sector must continue to be intensively carried out

"So that we are not left behind by other countries and the most important thing is development that can have a long-term positive impact on the environment," said Pasha//VOI