INDONESIA is planning to grant 30 more countries visa-free facilities next year in a bid to grow arrivals, the country announced in less than two weeks since it waived visa requirements for 30 countries.
Speaking at closed-door meeting on tourism with president Joko Widodo and tourism stakeholders yesterday, Indonesia’s tourism minister Arief Yahya said: “The president has instructed me, and invited the tourism industry to give their input, on giving another 30 countries visa-free entry to Indonesia.”
“The point of the visa-free facility is, first of all, to improve service standards and secondly, to compete with other countries,” he elaborated. “Malaysia has granted the facility to 164 countries and Thailand, 56 countries. With the latest additional 30 countries getting the visa waiver, we are currently giving 45 countries the facility.”
Indonesia’s recent move to lift visa requirements for 30 countries is expected to add another one million arrivals in the next 12 months or 500,000 arrivals for 2015.
“Our arrival target this year is 10 million so we expect to reach 10.5 million with the new visa policy,” Arief said, adding that the extra revenue generated could reach US$1 billion in a year or US$500 million this year.
Indonesia’s immigration law stipulates visa-free entry for another country can only be granted in cases where there is reciprocity.
Commenting on this, Arief said: “The law is still valid. However, reciprocity is like a chicken-and-egg scenario. (Indonesia can offer this first), after which the Ministry of Foregn Affairs can then approach these countries to give Indonesians visa-free entry.”
But he pointed out that the higher the number of countries giving Indonesia free entry, the bigger the chance that the foreign exchange rate of the rupiah would be adversely affected “as more Indonesians will spend money overseas”.
