Visa-free travel into Indonesia has increased tourist footfalls alongside illegal tour guiding.
A year since Indonesia expanded its visa-free policy to 169 countries, the move has brought a mixed bag of results for the country, drawing an increase of foreign visitors as well as a spike in illegal tour guiding at the same time.
Publishing figures on the outcome of the visa-free policy, Indonesia Directorate General of Immigration revealed that the country received nearly seven million international arrivals between June 2015 and June 2016.
Of these, 15 countries – including ASEAN member countries which have had visa-free entry into Indonesia for many years – remain the biggest contributor to the country by far, accounting for 4.1 million arrivals. The 144 new countries that received the visa-free facility contributed just 2.9 million arrivals, while 10 countries did not contribute any arrival.
As well, visitor arrivals from China to Indonesia hiked 24.4 per cent in 1H2016 to reach 685,074. Bali, in particular, has been at the receiving end of the Chinese influx.
The dramatic growth shows that the aggressive marketing and promotions targeted at the China market, together with visa-free access, have been effective.
However, along with the gain in Chinese visitor arrivals is an increase in violation of the visa-free policy too, invoking industry members’ concern especially of visitors overstaying or engaging in illegal guiding activities.
Eddy Sunyoto, managing director of Terimakasih Indonesia Tours and Travel, and head of international promotion of the Association of the Indonesian Tours and Travel Agencies (ASITA), said: “There are a number of cases in Bali where we found ‘freelance’ Chinese guides offering services at the airport or the hotels.
“Our ASITA member lost a group of Chinese tourists to an unofficial guide who approached them to offer his service during breakfast. The hotel informed our member that the so-called guide was also a guest at the hotel.”
But ‘freelance’ guides are not a new phenomenon. Rudiana, WITA Tour’s director of sales and marketing, said: “Even before the visa-free access was granted to the Chinese, we had already experienced losing group tour members (several times).
“I understand the government’s efforts to make it easy for travellers to come, but for the China market I would suggest that visa-free facility be revoked,” he commented, echoing member of parliament Charles Honoris’ call to review the visa-free facility for selected countries.
Rudiana suggested an alternative: “I think online visa is quite convenient for travellers and the immigration office will have a record of them.”
On the other hand, Eddy does not see merit in revoking the facility to Chinese visitors: “We cannot just lift a facility that we have just given. Where is our dignity?
“When Indonesia decided to afford 169 countries visa-free facilities, we should had taken all the precautions to eliminate negative impacts. Now, the immigration office must work harder,” he remarked.
Arief Yahya, Indonesian minister of tourism, has played down the concerns over illegal guiding.
He said: “We do not need to worry about the visa-free policy. Malaysia and Thailand have given the facilities to more than 150 countries before we did and (no one made a fuss). (Instead) they have enjoyed the healthy growth of travel arrivals.”
This article was first published in TTG Asia September 2016 issue. To read more, please view our digital edition or click here to subscribe.
