Tourist Visits To Indonesia Throughout January August 2024 Reach 9.09 Million

JAKARTA - The performance of foreign tourist visits (tourists) to Indonesia shows a positive increase where cumulatively from January to August 2024 it has reached 9.09 million or an increase of 20.38 percent compared to the same period in the previous year.

Adyatama Kepariwisata dan Ekonomi Kreatif Ahli Utama Kemenparekraf/Baparekraf, Nia Niscaya, dalam "The Weekly Brief With Sandi Uno" di Gedung Sapta Pesona, Jakarta Pusat, Senin (7/10/2024) menjelaskan kalau dibandingkan dengan target wisatawan yang harus dicapai Kemenparekraf pada 2024, Kemenparekraf membagi dengan dua skenario yakni target bawah dan target atas. Target bawah sebesar 10,41 juta kunjungan dan target atas sebesar 14,3 juta kunjungan.

"And with the achievements from January to August, we have reached 87.35 percent for the lower target. Meanwhile, our top target has reached 63.59 percent," said Nia Niscaya.

Currently, the contribution of foreign tourists for the January August 2024 period sequentially, comes from Malaysia, Australia, China, Singapore, and Timor Leste. The main entrance is almost past the lower target and is close to the top target, especially I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport, Bali, almost 2.95 million tourists.

The biggest homework is the door in Batam-Bintan or Riau Islands (Riau Islands). This is still quite a homework far from the target per gate or still around 700 thousand tourists entering," said Nia Niscaya.

Nia Niscaya then highlighted the comparison between national tourists (tourists) and foreign tourists to see the comparison of the number of Indonesian tourists traveling abroad and foreign tourists entering Indonesia. Cumulatively in the January August 2024 period, the number of national tourists was 5.99 million.

"If you say, there is still a surplus of 3.10 million visits, but there is hope that we have bigger foreign tourists and smaller national tourists. And indeed year on year there is an increase but month to month for national tourists has decreased, maybe this is related to the end of the school holidays," said Nia.

Based on tourist destinations, Malaysia still dominates, followed by Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand, and Timor Leste. The main doors that the national sector passes include Soekarno Hatta International Airport, Hang Nadim International Airport, Kualanamu International Airport, and Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport.

On that occasion, Nia Niscaya also conveyed about the foreign tourist target for the availability of flight seats. Judging from data from Amadeus Travel Intelligence, the projected comparison of the use of seat capacity for flights in the January December 2024 period, amounting to 67 percent or 15.8 million was used for foreign tourists and 33 percent or 7.7 million were used for national tourists.

"If we look at Amadeus data, the composition is more or less the same. More dominated by people who enter or foreign tourists who reach 9.09 million, this is a real good sign from the accessibility side. And thank you to the Ministry of Transportation for providing many solutions for additional accessibility," said Nia.

Nia Niscaya also explained the conversion between searching and booking based on Amadeus Travel Intelligence. It is recorded that the number of searches for Indonesian destinations in 2024 will reach 858 million. However, the number of book orders or book returns is only 1.54 million.

When converted, booking returns turned out to be quite low. If we look at the percentage, it's only 0.2 percent. This data shows that there is still room to grow so that there are indeed many things that must be done in the sense that the top of mind remains high, but the conversion is also high. This is indeed our common homework," said Nia.

Meanwhile, from the tourist side, the archipelago (wisnus) in the January to August 2024 period cumulatively reached 674.60 million, an increase of 19.20 percent compared to the same period the previous year of 565.93 million.

The number of foreign tourists for the period January to August 2024 has only reached 53.97 percent of the 1.25 billion lower-target travel or 44.97 percent of the 1.5 billion upper-border targets.

"So we admit this is still homework," said Nia.