The influx of foreign tourists to Indonesia has demonstrated a favorable trend, with a total of 9.09 million visitors recorded from January to August 2024. This number reflects a 20.38% rise in comparison to the corresponding period in the prior year.
During “The Weekly Brief with Sandi Uno” at the Sapta Pesona Building in Central Jakarta on Monday, October 7, 2024, Nia Niscaya, the Principal Expert in Tourism and Creative Economy at the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy (Kemenparekraf/Baparekraf), conveyed that Kemenparekraf has outlined two target scenarios for foreign tourist arrivals in 2024, which include a lower target of 10.41 million and an upper target of 14.3 million.
“With the achievement from January to August, we have already reached 87.35% of the lower target and 63.59% of the upper target,” Nia Niscaya stated.
The largest contributors of foreign tourists during the January-August 2024 period were Malaysia, Australia, China, Singapore, and Timor Leste. The main entry points have almost reached the lower target and are approaching the upper target, especially I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport in Bali, which has nearly reached 2.95 million tourists.
“Our biggest challenge remains the Batam-Bintan or Riau Islands (Kepri) entry points. This area is still far from its per-port target, with tourist arrivals below 700,000,” Nia Niscaya added.
Nia also highlighted the comparison between domestic tourists (wisnas) and foreign tourists (wisman) to observe the number of Indonesians traveling abroad versus foreign visitors entering Indonesia. From January to August 2024, domestic tourist departures reached 5.99 million.
“There is still a surplus of 3.10 million visits, but we hope that the number of foreign tourists will increase while the number of domestic tourists declines. Year on year, there is an increase, but month-to-month, domestic tourist numbers have decreased, likely due to the end of the school holiday season,” Nia explained.
In terms of destination preferences for domestic tourists, Malaysia continues to dominate, followed by Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand, and Timor Leste. The main departure points for domestic tourists include Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Hang Nadim International Airport, Kualanamu International Airport, and Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport.
Nia Niscaya also addressed the target for foreign tourists in relation to the availability of flight seats. According to data from Amadeus Travel Intelligence, the projected seat capacity for the January-December 2024 period is 67%, or 15.8 million seats, for foreign tourists, while 33%, or 7.7 million seats, are allocated for domestic tourists.
“If we look at the Amadeus data, the composition from January to August is roughly the same, with foreign tourists dominating the total, reaching 9.09 million. This is a positive indicator in terms of accessibility. We extend our gratitude to the Ministry of Transportation for providing solutions to improve accessibility,” Nia said.
She further elaborated on the conversion between search activity and bookings, based on Amadeus Travel Intelligence. In 2024, there were 858 million searches for destinations in Indonesia. However, bookings only reached 1.54 million.
“When it comes to conversion, our booking return is quite low. The conversion rate is only 0.2%. This data shows that there is still room for growth. We need to ensure that Indonesia remains a top-of-mind destination while improving the conversion rate. This is indeed a challenge we must address together,” Nia explained.
On the domestic front, the number of domestic tourists (wisnus) from January to August 2024 reached 674.60 million, a 19.20% increase from 565.93 million during the same period last year.
The figure for domestic tourist trips in January to August 2024 represents 53.97% of the lower target of 1.25 billion trips and 44.97% of the upper target of 1.5 billion trips.
“This remains a challenge for us,” Nia concluded.