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Free visa comes with price to pay
If you throw open your doors and invite all and sundry in, you might expect a few problems
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If you throw open your doors and invite all and sundry in, you might expect a few problems.
Overstaying visitors and unlicensed foreign workers have been identified as among the risks of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s decision to waive visa requirements for visitors from 169 countries looking to stay in Indonesia for less than 30 days.
Jokowi’s administration wants to boost the number of tourists visiting the country to 20 million by 2019, double the number recorded last year, however the free-visa policy has been subject to abuse.
Last week, the immigration authorities in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, arrested three Chinese tourists for exceeding their 30-day stay permits. In Ponorogo, East Java, a 28-year-old Pakistani was deported in March for staying beyond his 30-day permit.
“The policy will certainly increase visitor numbers to Indonesia, but it has to be followed by intensified supervision,” marketing and tourism observer Popy Rufaidah from Padjadjaran University said at a recent discussion on the free-visa policy, which was also attended by the tourism Minister.
Tourism Minister Arief Yahya envisions tourism becoming Indonesia’s top foreign-exchange earner by 2020, overtaking earnings from oil and gas. Tourism activities are expected to earn the country US$40 billion by then, up from only $11 billion at present.
But the risks are many. Aside from overstays, the free-visa policy also opens wide the opportunity for foreign visitors to work illegally here, said Jajang Gunawijaya, a tourism expert from the University of Indonesia. “Foreigners could visit Indonesia with the secret intention of working illegally,” he said.
Jajang added that other types of abuse, such as those related to drugs and general bad behavior, could also occur if the government was not strict in its surveillance of foreign visitors.
The Depok immigration office recently detained two foreigners, one from Uzbekistan and the other from Hungary, for overstaying, the first of whom had been working in the entertainment business in Indonesia for more than two years.
Three Malaysian citizens were detained by Makassar Police officers in March for smuggling 1.7 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine. In May, a 19-year-old Hong Kong citizen was also arrested in Jakarta for possession of 520,000 ecstasy pills.
Last month, 49-year-old Frenchman Amokrane Sabet was shot dead by the Bali Police after stabbing an officer to death. It was later found that he had overstayed his visa.
More recently, 25-year-old Australian Aaron Dolden was detained by security at Ngurah Rai International Airport for unruly behavior during a flight from Sydney to Bali.
“These kind of issues can be triggered by the absence of a visa, which was used as a background check,” Popy said.
Indonesia, a country known by tourists for its pristine beaches, mountains and many other beautiful natural attractions spread over 17,000 islands, saw 3.42 million foreign visitors from January to April, up 7.15 percent from the same period a year ago, Central Statistics Agency (BPS) data show.
The immigration office, which is part of the Law and Human Rights Ministry, is stepping up its game in the surveillance of foreign visitors.
The South Jakarta immigration office, among others, has established a Foreign Nationals Supervisory Team (TIMPORA) secretariat office in the Kalibata City apartment complex, aiming to minimize violations by foreigners in the area. Other immigration offices, such as those in Thousand Islands; Makassar, South Sulawesi; and Bintan, Riau, have taken similar action.
For its part, the Tourism Ministry is working to locate tourists and track their lengths of stay through a location-based advertising (LBA) partnership with PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia, the nation’s largest telecommunications company.
“Upon their arrival in Indonesia, the foreigners will receive a welcome message ‘Welcome to Indonesia, enjoy your stay’ etc. The LBA will then be able to track their location, and Telkom will alert us whenever a foreigner has violated the 30-day permit,” the ministry’s deputy secretary for overseas tourism development Giri Adnyani said.
