Indonesia Hopes To Lure In 2.1 Million Chinese Tourists

Jakarta, 6 Jumadal Awwal 1437/16 February 2016 (MINA) – The Indonesian turism ministry said it hopes to lure 2.1 million Chinese tourists to visit the country in 2016. For the first time Chinese including from mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong are expected to lead in number of foreign visitors to Indonesia, I Gde Pitana, deputy for marketing expansion at the tourism ministry said.

“What I mean with China is Greater China including Taiwan and Hong Kong,” Pitana said here on Monday, Antara News quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

The 2.1 million Chinese include 1.7 million from mainland China, 275,000 from Taiwan and 125,000 from Hong Kong, he said, adding the visitors from Hong Kong are smaller in number but they are bigger spender.

So far visitors from Malaysia and Singapore have been more dominant in number among foreign tourists to Indonesia every year.

This year visitors from Malaysia are expected to total around 2 million and from Singapore around 1.8 million, Pitana said.

Pitana, however, said there is negative image in seeking to lure in more Chinese to Indonesia.

“According to a study by marketing agency Ogilvy, negative perceptions of Indonesia are still more dominant over positive perceptions,” he said.

He said generally tourists from China and India look for information about tourist destinations from Internet, which tends to give bad more than positive news.

“In a bid to cope with the problem we have sought to provide more positive news. We are teaming up with Baidu , which controls 80 percent of travel business in China,” he said.

According to the tourism ministry, negative perception shown in Internet in China is discrimination against Chinese in Indonesia.

However, the number of Chinese visiting Indonesia has continued to increase .

Earlier this month , thousands of Chinese flocked to Bali to cerebrate Chinese new year using chartered flights .

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said Chinese from tends of cities in China visited Bali using chartered flights.

“It seems Bali has become the favorite destination of Chinese tourists . More than 114 million Chinese travel abroad every year,” Arief said.

The Chinese chartered aircraft of Indonesian airlines including Garuda and Citilinks and foreign airlines such as Hong Kong Airlines, Shenzen airlines, Air Asia, China Southern, China Eastern, Dragon Air, Cathay Pacific, Eva Air, Singapore Airlines, Brunai Air, etc.

The minister attributed the success in luring Chinese to Bali to intensive advertising, and sales by a marketing team of the tourism ministry.

The tourism ministry has launched promotion campaigns to attract Chinese to cerebrate Chinese new year in Bali since early January.

“Winter in northern China including Beijing and the province of Heilongjiang is extreme 15 degree Celsius below zero prompting people from that region to leave for warm place and choose Bali to celebrate the new year,” he said.

He said China is a potential market with around 114 million Chinese traveling abroad every year.

He said currently only 1.14 million Chinese tourists visit Indonesia a year far smaller than 8 million to Thailand.

“We have been lagging too far behind . If they are so interested in visiting Thailand , they should be more so in Indonesia,” he said, adding Indonesia needs only to intensify promotion.  (T/P010/R01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)