Indonesia wants visitors to stay longer and spend more

The quest is on for quality over quantity, said Raden Wisnu Sindhutrisno, director of tourism marketing Asia Pacific at Indonesia's Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, during the ASEAN NTO’s Media Briefing at the ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) 2023.

“While we are focused on increasing the number of visitors, we also want quality visitors – tourists who will spend more and stay longer in this country,” he said, adding that his ministry has designed specific strategies and action plans to achieve this.

Foremost in the plan is the creation of tourist villages across the country in order to attract more tourists to the countryside and highlight the lesser-known and unique aspects of Indonesian culture and heritage.

Known as ‘desa wisata’ in Indonesian, there are more than 3,500 tourist villages across Indonesia with each categorised as initial, medium and ready stage. These villages are being rejuvenated to support rural and sustainable tourism with the government and various stakeholders providing capacity building and skills training to the local community.

At ATF 2023, Indonesia Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy's Raden Wisnu Sindhutrisno spoke of the focus on developing tourist villages across the country.

“Visitors visiting any of these tourism villages can actively participate in local activities such as padi planting, bathing buffaloes and, at the soon-to-be developed Gorontalo province, hand-feeding whale sharks with the locals,” Wisnu explained.

The government’s efforts have yielded impressive results. One such village, Nglanggeran Tourism Village in Jogjakarta, was named the World's Best Tourism Village for 2021 by UNWTO; it also won the 2017 Asean Community Based Tourism Award. Nglanggeran’s unique offerings include volcano tyrolean traversing and chocolate making.

Indonesia is also keen to develop and promote other key destinations, specifically its five Super Priority Tourism Destinations – including Lake Toba in North Sumatra, Borobudur in Central Java, Mandalika in Lombok, Labuan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara, and Likupang in North Sulawesi.

“These areas have been identified as having the potential to be world-class tourism destinations. In fact, Lake Toba is ready to receive visitors when we host the F1 Powerboat Championship next month from February 24-26,” said Wisnu.

The F1 Powerboat World Championship is an international motorboat racing competition for powerboats organised by the Union Internationale Motonautique with 3,000 visitors expected to attend this year’s event.

By developing tourism villages and identifying “super priority” destinations, Indonesia is embracing the shifting trends in travel and tourism as well as changing tourist behaviour as it projects an increase in visitor arrivals to the country in 2023 and beyond.

Indonesia welcomed 16.1 million foreign tourists in 2019 and is targeting between 3.5-7.4 million this year.