TOURISM minister Arief Yahaya’s declaration that Indonesia will grant 30 more countries visa-free access was met with cheers internationally but local travel companies were nothing short of blasé.
“(Granting visitors) visa-free status is a means to increase the number of arrivals and national income from tourism,” said Arief, adding that neighbouring Malaysia and Thailand have enjoyed high arrival numbers since allowing tourists to enter without visas.
Intended to help Indonesia achieve its target of 20 million arrivals by 2019, the move was announced following a March 16 closed-door meeting with president Joko Widodo.
Some of the 30 countries on the list are China, Japan, South Korea, the US, Russia, the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Poland, Czech Republic, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.
“I think it will take some time before we see it happening,” said Achmad Sufyani, COO, Panorama Destination, pointing out that citizens of China, Japan, South Korea and Russia – the first four countries Indonesia said it would allow visa-free access to – still require visas at present.
Furthermore, Indonesia’s directorate general of immigration clarified over the weekend that that visa-free status are granted to a country’s citizens on a reciprocal basis, i.e. when the same rights are given to Indonesians visiting those countries.
Only 15 countries are currently in such an arrangement with Indonesia and it is difficult to imagine countries like the US and the UK doing away with the existing laborious visa application systems for Indonesian citizens.
Industry players TTG Asia e-Daily spoke to suggested more immediate solutions that could have a similar impact, such as an online visa application system, said Umberto Cadamuro, COO Inbound of Pacto. “What travellers need is smooth travel, so (the issue is) more about services, less about the visa fee,” he said.
Ida Bagus Ngurah Wijaya, Bali chapter chairman of Indonesia Tourism Industry Association, agreed: “A visa is a means of knowing who is entering the country. The complaints we have been getting are more on about visa services and long queues at the airport, rather than the amount of money they pay for the visa.”
