National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia said on Tuesday the company aimed to boost domestic tourism, including destinations in second-tier cities, through its annual Garuda Indonesia Travel Fair (GATF) this year.

Garuda Indonesia commercial director A. Toni Soetirto said the company had noted massive infrastructure development in various tourist spots, including the top 10 emerging destinations such as Labuan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara and scenic Lake Toba in North Sumatra.

“We’re supporting these efforts with the travel fair. Passengers will be able to book their trips at an affordable price, along with the trip packages and tour and hotel booking,” said Toni, who took up his post recently.

Other destinations that would be featured during the travel fair include popular places such as Denpasar in Bali, Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara and Raja Ampat in West Papua.

Toni said Garuda had opened routes to those destinations, as well as routes to Banyuwangi in East Java and Wakatobi in Southeast Sulawesi.

The carrier has also recently launched a new route to Silangit Airport near Lake Toba to reduce the previously lengthy trip to the lake.

“The penetration to these secondary cities of Banyuwangi and Lake Toba are pretty new concepts created by Garuda. We want to urge travelers not to just visit destinations abroad but also local destinations,” Toni said.

At last year’s travel fair, the company saw a pretty tight ratio between the number of people purchasing tickets for overseas travel and those buying tickets for internal travel with 51 percent of international flights and 49 percent domestic flights.

Apart from promoting tickets for domestic destinations, the airline will also offer overseas destinations like London, Hongkong, Singapore and Osaka.

Those are favorite destinations with various special offers at the fair, especially with the airline moving to Heathrow from Gatwick in London.

Meanwhile, the cheapest ticket offered would be Rp 700,000 (US$53.33) with the various ticket discount offers, Toni added.

The event will be held twice this year in 14 cities, ranging from Jakarta to Pekanbaru, Riau; Yogyakarta and Jayapura, Papua. The first phase will be held from April 29 to May 1 in the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC).

Garuda has set a target of Rp 250 billion in total transactions at the event this year, a 5 percent increase from last year’s realized transactions of Rp 238 billion. The realized transaction figure exceeded the target of Rp 150 billion.

Meanwhile, it will also aim to attract 150,000 visitors, up from 117,000 visitors last year.

Garuda will team up with state lender Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) for the event, as well as a total of 52 travel agents, nine hotels and theme parks and three national tourism organizations, among others.

BNI consumer banking director Anggoro Eko Cahyo said the bank expected more cashless transactions this year, with last year’s figure already showing more than 50 percent of transactions were conducted using the bank’s cards.

“This year we’ve also designed a lot of programs for our debit card holders. We also provide 12-month installments with zero percent interest, so we expect that with these incentives, the sales volume will be higher,” he said.

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