A tourist village in Bali, Indonesia (Photo: Indonesia Travel)Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesia’s Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy has announced it’s likely that domestic tourists make fewer tripsto local destinations this year than the government had targeted as thecountry’s smokeless industry does not recover as much as expected.
DeputyMinister Vinsensius Jemadu said that thegovernment had initially targeted between 1.2 billion and 1.4 billion tripsfrom domestic tourists this year, but after evaluating the figures, reachingthe target would be “very difficult”.
Instead,the government hoped to record at least 1 billion trips by domestic tourists byyear-end, he said, adding that they are seeking solutions to achieve the targetof 1.2-1.4 billion domestic tourists in the next year.
Accordingto Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the country recorded 626.09 million domestictourists in the first nine months of this year, an increase of 12.81% over thesame period last year. It also exceeded the number of domestic tourists in thewhole year 2019 with 527.59 million.
Vinsensiussaid they all think that Indonesia’s tourism will return to normal thisyear, but geopolitical and world economic dynamics have impacted thedevelopment of its domestic tourism.
He addedthat the financial status of Indonesian people has not yet fully recovered.
Furthermore,aviation travel is still facing many challenges, with many flights and routesyet to resume to pre-pandemic levels. The prolonged decrease in flightfrequency has made airfares "very expensive".
It isexpected that Indonesia’s domestic aviation will fully recover to pre-pandemiclevels by 2025 at the latest.
Meanwhile,in the first nine months of 2023, Indonesia welcomed about 8.5 millioninternational visitors, exceeding the number of the whole year 2022 with 5.88million arrivals. This year, Indonesia aims to attract at least 10 millionforeign tourists./.
