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oreigner looking to spend their holidays enjoying Lake Toba can now reach North Sumatra’s famous tourist spot quickly, as the nearby Silangit Airport now accommodates international flights.

State-owned flag carrier Garuda Indonesia carried 68 passengers from Singapore on the very first international flight to the airport located in North Tapanuli regency on Saturday, demonstrating the airport’s readiness to serve direct flights from Singapore’s Changi Airport.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, who has been intensifying efforts to develop the Lake Toba region into a major tourist magnet, is scheduled to inaugurate Silangit Airport as an international airport at the end of November.

Three flights a week would be served on the Singapore-Silangit route to help promote Lake Toba as an international tourist destination, said Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan, who attended the maiden international flight ceremony on Saturday.

“[Passengers] need only 50 minutes to fly to Silangit from Singapore,” Luhut said.

From the airport, an overland journey of about one hour will get tourists to Lake Toba.

Before Silangit Airport gained its status as an international airport, people from abroad had to land at Kualanamu International Airport on the outskirts of North Sumatra’s capital of Medan, far north of Lake Toba. An overland trip from Medan to the lake takes five to six hours.

Silangit Airport, the second international airport in the province after Kualanamu International Airport, can accommodate 350,000 passengers a year.

However, the government, according to Luhut, is already mulling a plan to expand the terminal in 2019 to accommodate a growing number of passengers as it predicts a need for about 500,000 people a year.

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said the opening of the flight route connecting Silangit with Singapore, one the busiest economic centers in Southeast Asia, showed that the government meant business with its promise to develop tourism in Lake Toba, which some people envision as the Monaco of Asia.

“I am optimistic that more foreign tourists will visit Lake Toba now that Silangit Airport has become an international airport,” Arief said.

However, he noted that an international airport alone was not enough to boost the number of tourist arrivals, pointing to the need for further development of supporting facilities and services in the province, which has set itself a target of attracting 1 million foreign tourists a year.

North Sumatra Governor Tengku Erry Nuradi encouraged the administrations of nearby regions to start maximizing the potential of the airport for the benefit of the province and particularly for the Lake
Toba region.

“We [the provincial administration], as well as regency and city administrations, have to take advantage of this moment to develop tourism and other sectors,” said Erry, who also expressed his hope of having Silangit Airport serve direct flights from Thailand, Malaysia and China.

The new international airport is also expected to help promote and develop a number of programs in other sectors, such as agriculture, in neighboring Humbang Hasundutan regency.