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Ministry of Culture and Tourism Seeks Inter-Departmental Support in Order to Achieve 7 Million Foreign Visitors in 2008.

1/19/2008) Travel Trade Gazette’s (TTG) Mimi Hudoyo reports that the Indonesian Department of Culture and Tourism is seeking agreement to change current visa regulations to permit visa-free short visits from 10 countries.

If the proposal submitted to the Ministry of Law and Human Rights is successful, the citizens of Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, U.K., Germany, France, the Netherlands and Russia would be able to undertake holiday visits without having to purchase either a 7 or 30-day visa at the Indonesian port of entry as required under the visa-on-arrival policy now in place. Currently, 63 countries are eligible to pay a fee of US$10 for a 7-day visa or US$25 for a 30-day visa.

According to TTG, the move by the Ministry is in support of the goal to bring 7 million foreign tourists to Indonesia in 2008. “Other efforts include increasing immigration counters at Soekarno-Hatta Jakarta and Ngurah Rai Bali airports; encouraging airlines, both domestic and international, to open or increase services to tourist detonations; and placing multilingual information boards (Arabic, Japanese and Mandarin other than English and Bahasa Indonesia) in the two major airports,” reports TTG.

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Second Indonesian Operational Base to Allow New Flights to Australia, Sarawak and Malaysia

Indonesia AirAsia (IAA) have announced their intention to open an additional operational base in Bali as the next step to establishing a regional presence for the Carrier.

The Chief Officer of IAA, Dharmadi, told Bisnis Indonesia that the new Bali home base will commence operations in late March 2008, serving as a turn around point for new flights planned to Darwin and Perth in Australia.

The new Australian destinations are expected to start operating in September-October 2008, six months after the new home base becomes operational.

The new Australian service are expected to be served by Indonesia AirAsia’s fleet of Airbus A320 and Boeing 737-300 aircraft.

The Bali base is also expected to offer direct flight connections to Kuala Lumpur, Kuching and Kinabalu.

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The Indonesian National Air Carriers Association (INACA) anticipates that domestic air travel will increase only 6% in 2008 in response to higher fuel prices, increased domestic air fares and generally reduced consumer spending power.

While positive passenger growth in the vicinity of 6% is respectable, it still represents a slow down from the current year where domestic air travel expanded an estimated 15%.

Sounding a pessimistic message, the Secretary General of INACA, Tengku Burhanuddin, said that current fuel surcharges of Rp. 100,000 ($10.52) per flight fails to cover the entire substantial additional burden of higher fuel costs which are contributing to the operating losses being experienced by some Indonesian air operators.

A more optimistic view of the future of domestic aviation has been offered by a Director of the Department of Civil Aviation, Tri S. Sunoko, who thinks domestic air passenger traffic will increase by 14% in 2008.

According to Tri, “my predictions are not a drastic as INACA’s forecast of only 6% growth.”

Tri defended his more buoyant view which he said is based on growth of the general economy, consumer spending power and anticipated future fuel costs.

In the long term, insisted Tri, Indonesian domestic aviation will continue to demonstrate strong growth.

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