InJourney Collaborates With Thai Airways Airlines To Improve Tourist Visits To Borobudur

Director of Marketing and Tourism Program InJourney Maya Watono. (Photo: Mery Handayani/VOI)

JAKARTA - PT Aviasi Wisata Indonesia (Persero) continues to strive to boost the number of spiritual tourists to come to Borobudur, Central Java.

One way to do this is by partnering with the airline, Thai Airways.

The cooperation between the two companies was marked by the signing of the agreement carried out by the Director of Marketing and Tourism Programs InJourney and Wit Kitchathorn as Director of Sales Thai Airways in Jakarta on Monday, August 19, 2024.

InJourney Tourism Marketing and Program Director Maya Watono said the cooperation in the development of interconnectivity is expected to increase the movement of spiritual tourists to Borobudur Temple.

Maya said that in the early stages, InJourney targeted 400,000 to 500,000 spiritual tourists from Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia (ASEAN).

"We are quite optimistic that with the opening of this connectivity, we can boost foreign tourists 3 to 5 times, so it could be up to 400,000 to 500,000 (gastic election tourists), but this is just the first step," Maya said when met at the Sarinah building, Central Jakarta, written Tuesday, August 20.

Maya said Borobudur Temple was declared a spiritual destination for the tourism election in line with InJourney's commitment to building an inclusive destination as a place of worship for Buddhists.

"We understand that the interest of tourists, such as the spiritual election at Borobudur Temple, is very high, for that we develop connectivity from the air side in collaboration with Thai Airways," said Maya.

For your information, Buddhists in the world are 530 million, while the number of Buddhists in Asia is 490 million or about 92 percent of the total Buddhists in the world.

Meanwhile, the number of Buddhists in Southeast Asia is 120 million and the number of Buddhists in Thailand is 64 million or 53 percent of the total number of Buddhists in Southeast Asia.

Seeing this number, Maya said, this is very potential to open air connectivity for Thailand to Borobudur Temple.

The number of visits by Borobudur Temple to the season peak is 1.4 million both domestic and foreign tourists. Of these, 10 percent or around 140,000 are visits from foreign tourists. With this very potential number, "explained Maya.

Meanwhile, Director of Sales Thai Airways Wit Kitchathorn said Yogyakarta and Borobudur Temple are one of the favorite tourist destinations for Thai people and have a strong spiritual connection through Buddhism.

Therefore, he said Thai Airways continues to be committed to connecting tourists and culture not only from Thailand to Indonesia but also from Europe and Asia to Yogyakarta.

"We hope to be one of the airlines that facilitates tourists to visit Indonesia, especially Yogyakarta and Borobudur Temple. This collaboration will be a positive thing for Thai Airways and tourism in Indonesia," he said.

Meanwhile, Pelita Air as an Indonesian airline on a domestic route welcomes this collaboration.

Direktur Niaga Pelita Air Asa Perkasa mengatakan market Pelita Air paling besar yang saat ini diisi selain untuk perjalanan bisnis, juga diisi market pelajar dan family trip.

"For the tourism market, it has not been boosted, hopefully with the building connectivity in borobudur, the market from the tourism sector can be lifted and Pelita Air is here to connect it," he explained.