This year, the Ministry of Tourism Targets 118 Thousand Foreign Travelers From Thailand

By : Chodijah Febriyani And Aldi Firhand A | Saturday, October 07 2017 - 23:09 IWST

Snorkeling Tour Illustration at Pantai, Kalimantan Selatan (Photo: www.bloggerbanua.org)

INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta - The Ministry of Tourism (Kemenpar), targets a visit of tourists from Thailand as many as 118,000 people this year or an increase compared to 2016 as many as 98,864 people.

Head of the Special Interest Sales and MICE Section of Kemenpar Wiwiek Widyawati in Bangkok on Friday said that the Thai tourists' visit is still far below the tourist arrivals of other Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore with 1,472,767 people and Malaysia with 1,225,458 .

According to data obtained from the 2016 Kemenpar Data Center based on the main entrance, Thai people are more visiting through Jakarta, Bali, Yogyakarta, Batam, and Medan.

Wiwiek explained Kemenpar increasingly incentive to promote Indonesian tourism abroad along with the increasing target of foreign tourists to 2017, which is as many as 15 million tourists.

This time, Kemenpar held a "leisure" sales mission in three Thai cities namely Phuket, Chiang Mai and Bangkok. The event begins on September 2, 2017 in Phuket, resumed September 4, 2017 in Chiang Mai and ends on September 6, 2017 in Bangkok. Thailand is one of Indonesia's priority markets in Southeast Asia.

Wiwiek said, through the mission mission of sales (sales mission) is expected to bring more tourists from Thailand to visit Indonesia. Thailand has 32 million inbound in 2016, while Thailand's total outbound in 2015 is 9.65 million.

In this sales mission event, he said, Thai travel agency can collaborate and establish business relationships with travel agents from Indonesia.

In addition, in this activity Kemenpar also works with Thai Lion Air and Thai Air Asia. Thai Lion Air has just opened the Bangkok-Denpasar direct flight on September 15, 2017 and plans to open the Bangkok-Medan route in the near future.

Wiwiek said the collaboration between Indonesia and Thailand is expected to boost Thai tourist arrivals to Indonesia through the sale of tourist packages and supported by wider connectivity thereby strengthening business ties between Thailand and Indonesia.