Indonesia highlights tourism attractions

Nia Niscaya

Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago comprising more than 17,500 islands and a country with an Islamic heritage, is eyeing the Kingdom for its tourism sector expecting to increase the number of visitors from the Gulf region by over 10-fold in the current year.

The country is working to boost tourism to the island nation by conducting tourism promotional activities such as the Shariah package in the various cities of the Kingdom including Makkah and Madinah.

The Middle East, particularly the Kingdom, is an increasingly important growth area for Indonesia’s tourism sector with the country recording 15,703 visitors from Saudi Arabia in 2013, a figure it expects to see rising to 115,000 this year.

“Although the number of visitors from Saudi Arabia are relatively low compared to other markets, we believe that with the ongoing cooperation between both the public and private sectors of the two countries, the number of tourists to Indonesia will increase in the coming years,” said Nia Niscaya, director of international tourism promotion in the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy.

She told Arab News that the tourism industry’s target was to attract up to 214,000 tourists from the Middle East region with the Kingdom alone making up for about 115,000 tourists in the current year.

She said that although the volume of Muslim tourists especially from the Middle East was low compared to tourists from other countries, their numbers are set to grow from one year to the next. “What’s more, they stay for longer periods and spend more money,” she added. “They usually spend more than a week in Indonesia and we believe that the Sharia tourism packages have the potential to attract more Muslim tourists in the future,” she said.

She noted that Middle Eastern tourists favored Jakarta, West Java and Bali but they need to explore other destinations in the country.

Niscaya conceded that lack of promotion and marketing strategies in the Kingdom was one of the reasons for the low numbers of visitors from the Kingdom.

She said that, “Indonesia is planning to promote Shariah-compliant tourism in a bid to attract Saudi families to the country which suits every aspect of tourism whether it’s in natural beauty or in terms of expenditure.

Indonesia highlights tourism attractions