Yogyakarta Becomes The Most Favorite Destination City In The 2025 Nataru Holiday

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Transportation (Kemenhub) predicts that 119.5 million people will travel during the 2025 Christmas and 2026 New Year (Nataru) holidays. This year, Yogyakarta became the most favorite destination city chosen by the community during the holiday period.

Minister of Transportation Dudy Purwagandhi said tourism destination areas are still the main choice of the community in traveling during the Nataru period.

Based on the results of a potential movement survey conducted by the Ministry of Transportation's Transportation Transportation Policy Agency (BKT), said Dudy, Yogyakarta City has become a national favorite travel destination with a projection of 5.15 million movements.

Apart from Yogyakarta, continued Dudy, other cities that are also people's favorite destinations are Bandung Regency, Malang Regency, Bogor Regency, and Denpasar City.

"These five areas are centers of cultural, natural, and family recreation tourism which are predicted to be the main magnets of community mobility during year-end holidays," he said in an official statement, Tuesday, December 9.

Dudy said, from this survey conducted by BKT, it was found that interest in traveling and doing activities with family was the main driver of the Nataru travel orientation. Of course also along with the momentum of the long school holiday.

In addition to city destinations, continued Dudy, the data also shows the dominance of travel to the provinces on the island of Java. Central Java is predicted to be the largest destination province with 20.23 million movements.

Followed by East Java as many as 16.83 million and West Java as much as 16.61 million. Outside Java, areas such as South Sulawesi, North Sumatra, Bali, East Nusa Tenggara, and Lampung also experienced a significant increase in travel interest," he explained.

In terms of departure, continued Dudy, East Jakarta is the origin of the largest trip, followed by Bekasi Regency and Makassar City. In total, 119.5 million Indonesians or 42.01 percent are predicted to travel during the Nataru period this year.

"Preferencing for public transportation also shows that private cars are the main choice of 42.78 percent or 51.12 million people. Followed by motorbikes, buses, rental cars, travel, air modes, and trains," he said.

According to Dudy, the dominance of land modes has an impact on increasing pressure on transportation nodes and main roads. Density potential is expected to occur in a number of toll roads, such as Jakarta's Cikampek, Jakarta's Bogor'Ciawi, and Semarang'Solo.

"As well as the Palimanan Cikampek, so that traffic engineering adjustments will be applied to vulnerable points," he said.

Dudy said the peak of the homecoming flow is expected to occur on Wednesday, December 24, 2025, with 17.18 million trips, while the peak of backflow is predicted to fall on Friday, January 2, 2026 with 20.81 million trips.

"This peak date is the basis for regulating terminal operations, stations, airports, and ports," said Dudy.

Regarding the potential for extreme weather, Dudy emphasized the importance of cross-sectoral mitigation. Extreme weather risks such as high rainfall can affect air, sea, and land transportation.

"Therefore, coordination with BMKG and Basarnas is carried out in real time, including the readiness of personnel and equipment at disaster-prone points," he said.