Indonesia: Indonesia Tourism Profile

Tourism in Indonesia is an important component of the Indonesian economy as well as a significant source of its foreign exchange revenues. The vast country of sprawling archipelago has much to offer; from natural beauty, historical heritage to cultural diversity. In 2012 the tourism sector contributes to around US$9 billion of foreign exchange, and is estimated will surpassed US$10 billion in 2013. The tourism sector ranked as the 4th largest among goods and services export sectors.

In year 2013, 8,802,129 international visitors entered Indonesia, staying in hotels for an average of 7.5 nights and spending an average of US$1,142 per person during their visit, or US$152.22 per person per day.Singapore, Malaysia, China, Australia, and Japan are the top five source of visitors to Indonesia.

Looking at the majority recent available monthly arrivals data, Singapore remained the major source market for tourists in October 2011, providing 95,787 arrivals over the month, an increase of 10% y-o-y. Other key markets were Australia (84,449 tourists; up by 18.4% y-o-y), Malaysia (83,401; up 13.2%), China (43,305; up 11.2%), Japan (35,007; up 6.6%) and South Korea (25,507; up 1.95%).

The government remains committed to supporting the tourism industry, with Minister of Tourism Mari Elka Pangestu, appointed in October 2011, reaffirming the target of 8mn international tourist arrivals for 2012 at a tourism conference in Jakarta. BMI shares the government’s optimism, though, after very strong years of increase in 2010 and 2011, our core estimate is for Indonesia to consolidate recent gains with a slightly additional measured rate of tourist arrival increase, to reach just under 7.9mn tourists by the end of 2012 and a total of 8.72mn tourists by the end of 2015.

Encouragingly for the sector, the government is taking steps to diversify away from traditional source markets in Europe, which are suffering economic difficulties. The Ministry of Tourism is reportedly looking to refocus its marketing efforts to Australia, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, China, India, Russia and the Middle East.

BMI remains optimistic about the outlook for Indonesia’s tourism industry, which has weathered the recent years of world economic slowdown and the concomitant drop in tourism request much better than some of its world peers.

Both nature and culture are major components of Indonesian tourism. The natural heritage can boast a unique combination of a tropical climate, a vast archipelago of 17,508 islands, 6,000 of them being inhabited,the third longest shoreline in the world (54,716 km) after Canada and the European Union. It is the worlds largest and most populous country situated only on islands.The beaches in Bali, diving sites in Bunaken, Mount Bromo in East Java, Lake Toba and various national parks in Sumatra are just a few examples of popular scenic destinations. These natural attractions are complemented by a rich cultural heritage that reflects Indonesia's dynamic history and ethnic diversity. One fact that exemplifies this richness is that 719 living languages are used across the archipelago. The ancient Prambanan and Borobudur temples, Toraja, Yogyakarta, Minangkabau, and of course Bali, with its many Hindu festivities, are some of the popular destinations for cultural tourism.

Tourism in Indonesia is currently overseen by the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Tourism.International tourism campaigns have been focusing largely on its tropical destinations with white sand beaches, blue sky, and cultural attractions. Beach resorts and hotels have been developed in some popular tourist destinations, especially Bali island as the primary destination. At the same time, the integration of cultural affairs and tourism under the scope of the same ministry shows that cultural tourism is considered an integral part of Indonesia's tourism industry, and conversely, that tourism is used to promote and preserve the cultural heritage.

Some of the challenges Indonesia's tourism industry has to face include the development of infrastructure to support tourism across the sprawling archipelago, incursions of the industry into local traditions (adat), and the impact of tourism development on the life of local people. The tourism industry in Indonesia has also faced setbacks due to problems related to security. Since 2002, warnings have been issued by some countries over terrorist threats and ethnic as well as religious conflicts in some areas, significantly reducing the number of foreign visitors for a few years. However, the number of international tourists has bounced back positively since 2007, and reached a new record in 2008 and then made a new record every year and in 2012 set at 8,044,462 foreign tourists.

In 2013, based on World Economic Forum survey, Indonesia got Tourism Competitiveness Index score 4.0 and rank at number 70 (up from number 74 in 2011 and number 81 in 2009) from 140 countries. Aspects that need to be improved in order to move up the rank ladder are; tourism and ICT infrastructures, health and hygiene, environmental sustainability, and affinity for travel and tourism.

In late January 2011 Culture and Tourism Minister Jero Wacik announced that "Wonderful Indonesia" would replace the previous "Visit Indonesia Year" branding used by the nations official tourism promotional campaigns, although the logo of stylized curves Garuda remain.[15] The minister announced that in 2010, foreign tourists visiting Indonesia touched 7 million and made predictions of 7.7 million in 2011. He was reported as describing the new branding as reflecting "the country's beautiful nature, unique culture, varied food, hospitable people and price competitiveness. "We expect each tourist will spend around US$1,100 and with an optimistic target of 7.7 million arrivals, we will get $8.3 billion," from this. The Culture and Tourism Minister added that 50 percent of the revenue would be generated from about 600 meetings, conventions and exhibitions that were expected to take place in various places throughout the country 2011. He further added in the announcements of January 2011 that his ministry would be promoting the country's attractions under the eco-cultural banner.

Lombok Airport Opens

On October 1 2011, the new international airport at Lombok opened, replacing the old Selaparang Airport. The new airport, which reportedly cost US$108mn to build and was subject to a lot of delays during construction, will be able to handle wide-bodied aircraft such as the Boeing 767 and Airbus A330, so it is expected to boost tourism flows to Lombok, which the Indonesian authorities are trying to develop as an alternative destination to neighbouring Bali.

Speaking at the opening of the airport, West Nusa Tenggara governor Zainul Majdi said he hopes Malaysian low-cost carrier AirAsia will soon offer flights to Lombok, with the airline reportedly looking to start services to Lombok in 2012. The only foreign airline flying to Lombok is Singapore’s Silk Air.

Bird flu Still A Threat

Although BMI is still upbeat about the outlook for Indonesian tourism over the estimate period to 2015 threat to our forecasts remains any recurrence of a bird flu epidemic across the archipelago. In October 2011 there were three deaths, with a mother and her children dying as a result of contracting the H5N1 virus in Bangli, Bali province. To help the country transaction with the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) set up isolation rooms in Tangerang and another in Jakarta, to help treat patients. Eight additional facilities are due to be set up across Indonesia funded by the EU.

The danger posed by epidemics such as a recurrence of bird flu remains an intangible factor when generating our core estimate scenario for Indonesian tourism. Although it is to be hoped that the majority recent outbreak has been contained, it does show that the risks from bird flu remain real and that tourists need to take sensible precautions when travelling in infected areas.

 Tourist arrivals in Indonesia 2002–2012

Ten most tourist destinations in Indonesia recorded by Central Statistics Agency (BPS) are Bali, West Java, Central Java, East Java, Jakarta, North Sumatra, Lampung, South Sulawesi, South Sumatra, Banten and West Sumatra (which would make it 11 provinces today due to Banten before having been a part of West Java).

As with most nations, domestic tourists are by far the major market segment. The biggest movement of domestic tourists is during the annual Eid ul-Fitr, locally known as "lebaran". During this period, which is a two-week holiday next the month of fasting during Ramadan, a lot of city-dwelling Muslim Indonesians visit relatives in their home towns. Intercity traffic is at its peak and often an additional surcharge is applied during this time.

Over the five years up to 2006, attention has been focused on generating additional domestic tourism. Competition amongst budget airlines has increased the number of domestic air travellers throughout the country. Recently, the Ministry of Labour legislated to create long weekends by combining public holidays that fall close to weekends, except in the case of significant religious holidays. During these long weekends, most hotels in popular destinations are fully booked.

Since 2000, on average, there have been five million foreign tourists each time(see table), who spend an average of US$100 per day. With an average visit duration of 9–12 days, Indonesia gains US$4.6 billion of foreign exchange gain annually.This makes tourism Indonesia's third most significant non-oil–gas source of foreign revenue, next timber and textile products.

Next toppled Japan 2 years ago, China as the world's biggest tourism spenders presently toppled Australia to become number three with 30.42 % increase year-on-time(y-o-y), while totally foreign tourists increase by 10.6 % y-o-y set to additional than 2.9 million. The top nations of origin Q1 2014 data is come from the Asia-Pacific region, with Singapore (15.7 %), Malaysia (14.0), China (11.0), Australia and Japan part the top nations of origin. The United Kingdom, France, and Germany are the major sources of European visitors.[23] Although Dutch visitors are at least in part keen to explore the historical relationships, a lot of European visitors are seeking the tropical weather at the beaches in Bali.

Around 59% of all visitors are traveling to Indonesia for holiday, while 38% for business purposes.

In 2012, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council travel and tourism made a total contribution of 8.9% of GDP and supported 8% of total employment in Indonesia.

Dive sites

With additional than 17,508 islands, Indonesia presents ample diving opportunities. With 20% of the world's coral reefs, over 3,000 different species of fish and 600 coral species, deep water trenches, volcanic sea mounts, World War II wrecks, and an endless variety of macro life, scuba diving in Indonesia is both excellent and inexpensive.Bunaken National Marine Park, at the northern tip of Sulawesi, claims to have seven times additional genera of coral than Hawaii,and has additional than 70% of all the known fish species of the Indo-Western Pacific. According to Conservation International, marine surveys suggest that the marine life diversity in the Raja Ampat area is the highest recorded on Earth.Moreover, there are over 3,500 species living in Indonesian waters, inclunding sharks, dolphins, manta rays, turtles, morays, cuttlefish, octopus and scorpionfish, compared to 1,500 on the Great Barrier Reef and 600 in the Red Sea.

Tulamben Bay in Bali boasts the wreck of the 120 metres (390 ft) U.S. Army commissioned transport vessel, the Liberty. Other popular dive sites on Bali are at Candidasa and Menjangan. Across the Badung Strait from Bali, there are several popular dive sites on Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Penida. Lombok's three Gilis (Gili Air, Gili Meno and Gili Trawangan) are popular as is Bangka. Some of the majority famous diving sites in Indonesia are as well the majority difficult to reach, with places like Biak off the coast of Papua and the Alor Archipelago part the popular, additional remote, destinations for divers.

Surf breaks

Surfing is as well a popular water activity in Indonesia and the sites are recognised as world class. The well-known spots are mostly located on the southern, Indian Ocean side of Indonesia, for example, the large oceanic surf breaks on southern Java. However, the north coast does not receive the same surf from the Java Sea. Surf breaks can be found all the way along Sumatra, down to Nusa Tenggara, inclunding Aceh, Bali, Banten, Java, Lombok, the Mentawai Islands, and Sumbawa. Although Indonesia has a lot of world-class surfing spots, the majority of surfers are came from abroad, particularly Australia and United States. However, the seed of local surfing enthusiast began develop in Bali and West Java's Pelabuhan Ratu and Pangandaran beach, mostly came from nearby cities of Jakarta and Bandung. On Bali, there are about 33 surf spots, from West Bali to East Bali inclunding four on the offshore island of Nusa Lembongan. In Sumbawa, Hu'u and Lakey Beach in Cempi Bay are popular surfing spots part surfing enthusiast. Sumatra is the second island, with the majority number of surf spots, with 18 all. The common time for surfing is around May to September with the trade winds blowing from east to south-east. From October to April, winds tend approaching from the west to north-west, so the east coast breaks get the offshore winds.

Two well-known surf breaks in Indonesia are the G-Land in the Bay of Grajagan, East Java, and Lagundri Bay at the southern end of Nias island. G-Land was initial identified in 1972, at the same time as a surfer saw the break from the window of a plane. Since 6 to 8-foot (Hawaiian scale) waves were discovered by surfers at Lagundri Bay in 1975, the island has become famous for surfing worldwide.

Bogor Botanical Gardens established in 1817, and Cibodas Botanical Gardens established in 1862, are two part the oldest botanical gardens in Asia. With rich collections of tropical plants, these gardens is the center of botanical research inclunding tourism attraction since colonial era.

National parks

There are 50 national parks in Indonesia, of which six are World Heritage listed. The major national parks in Sumatra are the 9,500-square-kilometre (3,700 sq mi) Gunung Leuser National Park, the 13,750-square-kilometre (5,310 sq mi) Kerinci Seblat National Park and the 3,568-square-kilometre (1,378 sq mi) Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, all three recognised as Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra on the UNESCO World Heritage inventory. Other national parks on the inventory are Lorentz National Park in Papua, Komodo National Park in the Lesser Sunda Islands, and Ujung Kulon National Park in the west of Java.

To be noticed, different national parks offer different biodiversity, as the natural habitat in Indonesia is divided into two areas by the Wallace line. The Wallacea biogeographical distinction means the western part of Indonesia (Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan) have the same flora and fauna characteristics as the Asian continent, whilst the remaining eastern part of Indonesia has similarity with the Australian continent.

A lot of native species such as Sumatran elephants, Sumatran tigers, Sumatran rhinoceros, Javan rhinoceros and Orangutans are listed as endangered or critically endangered, and the remaining populations are found in national parks and other conservation areas. Sumatran orangutan can be visited in the Bukit Lawang conservation area, while the Bornean orangutan can be visited in Tanjung Puting national park, Central Kalimantan. The world's major flower, rafflesia arnoldi, and the tallest flower, titan arum, can be found in Sumatra.

The east side of the Wallacea line offers the majority remarkable, rarest, and exotic animals on earth. Birds of Paradise, locally known as cendrawasih, are plumed birds that can be found part other fauna in Papua New Guinea. The major bird in Papua is the flightless cassowary. One species of lizard, the Komodo dragon can easily be found on Komodo, located in the Nusa Tenggara lesser islands region. Besides Komodo island, this endangered species can as well be found on the islands of Rinca, Padar and Flores.