Arief Yahya, Minister of Tourism, Indonesia
THE Indonesia Ministry of Tourism and Baidu Indonesia are collaborating to offer online marketing workshops for industry players in a bid to boost arrivals from mainland China to Indonesia.
In a press conference following the MoU signing between the ministry and Baidu Indonesia, Arief Yahya, Indonesia Minister of Tourism, said: “Arrivals from China to Indonesia last year reached 1.1 million, nearly 17 per cent higher than that in 2014. We are targeting two million arrivals this year and president Joko Widodo has given me a target of 10 million arrivals in 2019.”
“This is not an impossible thing as the number of outbound traffic from the country is huge,” said Yahya, adding that 83 per cent of travellers from mainland China are planning their trips through the internet and reaching them through that medium will be essential.
Bao Jianlei, managing director of Baidu Indonesia, concurs, saying that the new generation of travellers from mainland China are more independent than before and rely heavily on information available online.
Among the programmes that will come out of the collaboration are workshops for the Indonesian travel industry on how to present information, and on the kind of products that will appeal to travellers booking online.
