Facing The Threat Of Global Recession 2023, Menparekraf Sandiaga Recills Strategies To Develop Foreign Tourists' Markets

Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy (Menparekraf) Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno. (Photo: Doc. Kemenparekraf)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy (Kemenparekraf) will adjust the strategy for developing the Indonesian foreign tourist market (tourists). Especially to deal with the threat of an economic recession which is predicted to affect a number of market countries this year.

Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy (Menparekraf) Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno said that there are three world economic locomotives that have been mapped out to face a recession, so that the economy is slowing down, namely America, China, and European countries.

"Of course this will have an impact on the expenditure of the community, especially in the tourism sector. Therefore, we immediately made adjustments in terms of focus on tourism development and the creative economy, especially foreign tourists," Sandiaga said in a written statement, Tuesday, January 10.

The focus adjustment will be directed at countries that are big markets where the number of tourist visits to Indonesia is currently showing a tremendous increase, such as India, Australia, and New Zealand.

"Also Malaysia and Singapore are still growing," said Sandiaga.

Based on data, the number of foreign tourist visits to Indonesia from January to November 2022 reached 4.58 million visits, an increase of 228.3 percent compared to the number of foreign tourists visiting in the same period in 2021.

Of these, based on nationality, the number of foreign tourists with the highest visit was Malaysia with 876,475 visits, Timor Leste 628,471 visits, Australia 552,216 visits, Singapore 486,295 visits, and India 218,417 visits.

Meanwhile, the highest foreign tourists growth during this period was Australia at 20,952.84 percent, New Zealand 9.197.80 percent, India 3.869.77 percent, Germany 3.678.59 percent, and France 3.636.46 percent.

Sandiaga explained that his party is targeting the number of foreign tourist visits between 3.5 million and 7.4 million this year. He also hopes that the adjustment of the strategy carried out will have a positive impact on the performance targets of the tourism sector and the creative economy by 2023.

"Including several direct foreign flights from Qatar and Dubai that have conveyed, including we would like additional ones from Singapore and several ASEAN countries. This is what we are trying to do in the first quarter of this year in collaboration with airlines and the Ministry of Transportation, so that this potential market, including India, can be served by direct flights," he said.

In addition to the foreign market, Sandiaga also emphasized that the domestic tourist market (wisnus) will also be the main support.

"Indonesia will still grow about five percent, of course we must focus on encouraging the movement of domestic tourists to reach the target figure of 1.2 billion to 1.4 billion, we will strongly encourage the movement of domestic tourists," he added.