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Lobby group calls for subsidy for airline tickets to boost tourist arrivals
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Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) chairman Hariyadi Sukamdani (JP/Anton Hermansyah)
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obby group Indonesian Employers Association (Apindo) has called on the government to consider adding a subsidy for airline tickets to boost the tourist industry, with the government targeting 17 million foreign tourist arrivals this year.
“If we want strong growth in tourism, the government needs to have a subsidy for airplane tickets because airline tickets are expensive for tourists looking to travel to Indonesia,” said Apindo chairman Hariyadi Sukamdani in Jakarta on Wednesday as reported by kompas.com.
He said Thailand had introduced such a subsidy to boost its tourist industry.
The government, he added, needed to provide incentives to operators of certain chartered planes because prevailing laws prohibited them from transporting passengers on return flights to their initial country of departure.
His comment came after Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said that the government was preparing incentives for industries that could help the country in exports and tourism.
Hariyadi said the government needed to encourage more chartered planes to come to Indonesia, arguing it would help the country grow its tourist industry. He cited as an example a chartered plane of LOT Polish Airlines that landed in Denpasar with 254 tourists.
He also said the government needed to bring in more European tourists because they spent more. According to the Tourism Ministry, Europeans spend about US$1,538 per trip per person on average, while Chinese tourists spend $1,019 per trip per person. (bbn)
