YOGYAKARTA - The Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) of the Special Region of Yogyakarta (DIY) asked the government to increase international flight routes at Yogyakarta International Airport (YIA) Airport to boost the tourism sector in the province.
Chairman of PHRI DIY Deddy Pranowo Eryono in Yogyakarta, Saturday said, the accessibility of international flights is the main key to attracting more foreign tourists, especially from Asian countries to DIY.
"Access flights abroad, also from abroad to Indonesia, especially in DIY, must be encouraged properly," he said.
Currently, he said, YIA has only served direct flights from Singapore and Malaysia, so there needs to be a new route to increase the competitiveness of DIY tourism in the international arena.
"At least add one flight route from Thailand to Yogyakarta. By increasing access from Thailand, the impact will be enormous," he said.
According to him, the existence of Borobudur Temple as one of the leading tourist destinations in Central Java and DIY has a strong appeal for tourists from Thailand, especially Buddhists.
"Central Java - DIY has Borobudur whose culture and culture are the same as Thai tourists. That is the holy land of Buddhists," he said.
Deddy is optimistic that increasing air accessibility in YIA will be effective in supporting the government's target of increasing state foreign exchange from the tourism sector.
"Please pay more attention to this tourism sector because the impact of the multipiliers has a fairly broad effect, for MSMEs, then labor, as well as other sectors such as transportation," he said.
Chairman of the Indonesian Tourism Industry Association (GIPI) DIY Bobby Ardiyanto has the same hope regarding the addition of international flights at YIA.
According to him, YIA is very ready to serve more international flights because the airport capacity aspect is still very adequate.
"If we look at the current existing capacity, it is not up to 50 percent of the 'traffic' for both domestic and foreign flights," said Bobby.
Currently, foreign tourists in Yogyakarta are still dominated by tourists from Singapore and Malaysia, because only the two countries have direct flights to YIA.
Meanwhile, tourists from Europe, the Middle East, and other countries generally arrive via Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta or I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali, before continuing their journey to Yogyakarta.
He admitted that currently the average length of foreign tourists in DIY is only two days.
"With the addition of direct flights, we believe it can increase to five days and four nights. In comparison, in Bali, foreign tourists have lived for seven days and six nights," said Bobby.
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