Welcoming Foreign Tourists Tour, Menpar Ensure Benoa Port Completed Before the IMF Meeting

INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta - Tourism Minister Arief Yahya is targeting the development of Benoa Harbor, Bali to support the arrival of tourist boats to be completed a year before the International Monetary Fund-World Bank (IMF-WB) meeting in October 2018.

"We expect a year before the 'Annual Meeting IMF-WB' (development) has been completed," said Arief met at the Ministry of Home Affairs Ministries Jakarta, Tuesday (1/8/2017)

Arief said the development of tourist boat terminal or cruise in Benoa Harbor is expected to support government efforts to increase tourist boat visits to Indonesia with the potential to reach three million people.

"But in reality we can only get 200 thousand visits until now, so it's about 10 percent, and even 10 percent of it should be 300 thousand visits," he said.

The development of Benoa Port includes the expansion of international passenger terminal with a total of 4,887 m2 while the designation of the area of ​​arrival is 1,000 m2, the area of ​​departure is 1,238 m2 and the area of ​​baggage / luggage is 750 m2.

The 290-meter-long East Pier was also extended to 340 meters.

The increase and expansion of the harbor is done to accommodate. Accommodate large ships including cruise boats to increase the number of foreign tourists (tourists) and tourists archipelago (wisnus).

Arief said to date the new Benoa Harbor can accommodate one or two cruise ships.

"If we get up, the biggest one can accommodate a cruise with a load of up to 6,500 passengers.If people come with a capacity of 6,500 passengers it is equal to bring in 40 Boeing, so one Boeing exchange with 40 cruise Imagine how easy it is," he said to the crew media.

Similarly, the allocation of land that has been completed for the port area. In addition to developing ports, the government has also given discounted tariff rates to ships by 50 percent.

Giving a discount is expected to make Indonesia can compete with neighboring countries that are able to attract many cruise ships.

"We already have a letter from the Ministry of Transportation that we can give discounts up to 50 percent," he said.

Arief said the tariff reduction is targeted to bring tourist arrivals up to double in the next year from 200 thousand to 400 thousand people throughout Indonesia with total foreign exchange reached 480 million US dollars (equivalent to Rp6, 4 trillion).