THE West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) regional government aims to score two million tourists yearly to Lombok and Sumbawa by 2015, following the success of the Visit Lombok-Sumbawa 2012 campaign, which saw one million domestic and international visitors arrive for the first 11 months of this year.
Speaking during the Lombok-Sumbawa Travel Fair in Jakarta last weekend, NTB tourism and culture director, Lalu Gita Ariyadi, said: “The domestic market holds the biggest potential for Lombok, and we expect it to contribute 65 per cent of arrivals, with the rest from the international market.”
International tourists comprised 25 per cent of arrivals this year.
To grab the international market, the NTB government and the regional tourism promotion board will organise sales missions to Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia next year. Two events commemorating the 200th anniversary of Mount Tambora’s eruption will be held in Sumbawa in 2015.
Ariyadi said: “MICE has been an important market in achieving the one-million mark, and we will continue to boost it. A number of investors have shown their interest in developing a convention centre in Lombok and we are in the process of selection now.”
He added that the regional government needed the support of airlines as well, and expressed hope that Garuda Indonesia, which recently began Makassar-Lombok services, would operate more direct flights to the destination.
On regional and international routes, Ariyadi said the authorities were dangling funding to airlines that implemented services to Lombok. AirAsia, which began Kuala Lumpur-Lombok flights in October, was the first carrier to receive Rp500 million (US$52,148) for promotions. “We would like to help the airline grow traffic to enable it to keep flying this route.”
He added that the NTB government was talking to airlines such as Tiger Airways Australia, to run services between Australia and Lombok, especially from Perth.
