B

intan Resorts Cakrawala, the management of a recreational area in Bintan Island, Riau, expected to welcome domestic holidaymakers more than foreign tourists to the country’s emerging tourist destination.

The recreational area Bintan Resorts so far consists of integrated tropical beach with golf courses, wide array of recreational activities and facilities, located in an area that is 60 minutes away from Singapore by boat.

Bintan Resorts marketing manager Donny Tan said there is a shift of target market, from previously international tourists to the domestic market.

“They [the resorts] have been focusing a lot in the past to international market. But now they realize there is a huge potential [at home], so now they are focusing their energies to Indonesian market,” he said recently.

The destination has welcome a total of 850,000 tourists last year, at least 60 percent of which is local tourists.

This year, Bintan Resorts eyed at least 1 million foreign tourists to come to the area.

Most of the tourists have so far come from the corporate market, as compared to individual tourists, from Jakarta, he said.

However, Bintan Resorts have amped up its marketing effort across the country this year to expand its consumer base to five more cities namely Surabaya, East Java; Yogyakarta; Bandung, West Java; Medan, North Sumatra and Batam, Riau.

“We would also love to see more Indonesian families going to Bintan,” he said.

To lure more tourists, some of the tour packages to Bintan is also bundled with a trip to nearby Singapore.

So far, the destination boasts some tourism spots, apart from the beach, such as Penyengat Island, home to one of the oldest mosques Masjid Raya Sultan Riau, as well as new destination that was just opened in this year’s first quarter such as 3D-inverted settings photo spot Rumah Imaji.

The destination has also expected the new Bintan airport, built by Bintan Aviation Investment, that is expected to operate the earliest in 2019 to also further boost the tourism visit figure.

So far, it has relied the connectivity on the flights to Raja Haji Fisabilillah Airport in Tanjung Pinang for the tourists intending to go to Bintan.

The airport itself had already been built since 2014, with an investment up to US$150 million. It will cater 1 million passengers in its first phase of construction. The company has procured 4,000 hectares of land where 700 ha will be allocated for airport and 500 ha will be allocated for the aerospace industry park and MRO facilities.

Bintan Resorts Cakrawala has previously signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with private carrier Sriwijaya Group on the direct flights to Bintan.

With the MoU, Sriwijaya Air Group also looked at the possibility to develop a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of its aircrafts along with Bintan Resorts.

Bintan has also eyed to increase its number of rooms in the resorts area to 7,000 rooms by 2020 from currently around 2,000 rooms to cater the foreign tourists that are expected to make up to 1 million visitors in 2020.

In the weekends, the occupancy rate in the resorts in Bintan, currently amounting to 13 resorts, stand at 80 percent to 90 percent on average in weekends.

Meanwhile, Bintan Resorts marketing communications manager Iris Kok said so far the destination has also seen an increase in younger travelers, who are particularly keen on photo spots.

“They take pictures, post them on social medias. [...] So many photo spots we are promoting as well,” she said, mentioning spot such as Treasure Bay Bintan’s Crystal Lagoon, the scenic 6.3 hectares man-made saltwater lagoon, as part of the favorite photo spots.