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Jakarta attempts to reverse all-time low foreign tourist numbers
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Where to go: Signage at Kota Tua in West Jakarta shows Jl. Lada in Pinangsia, which serves as the way out of the historic Fatahillah Square to Jakarta Kota Station. Jakarta recorded an all-timelow number of foreign visits in the fourth quarter of 2019.
(The Jakarta Post/Dames Alexander Sinaga )
T
he Jakarta administration seeks to rebuild the capital city’s reputation for safety to revitalize its tourism amid a downturn of foreign tourists visiting in the past few months.
According to the Jakarta office of Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the number of foreign tourists visiting Jakarta in 2019 has been on a decline since August and that continued until November. Data from December is not yet available.
In 2019, the city welcomed the highest number of foreign visitors in July with a total of 268,258 and that number declined to 184,521 in November.
Although a downward trend from midyear onward can also be seen in previous years, as visitors usually peaked in July or August, month-to-month comparisons from 2016 to 2019 show that foreign visits from August to November hit an all-time low last year.
The acting head of the Jakarta Tourism and Creative Economy Agency, Cucu Ahmad Kurnia, said that this was because the political instability surrounding the 2019 presidential race and the numerous subsequent protests that swept the city in the second half of the year created an image that the country and Jakarta were unsafe to visit. The United States even issued several security alerts in response, Cucu noted.
He was hoping that the much-debated Formula E that was to be held in June 2020 would help to restore Jakarta's image as a safe city.
“We are hoping that holding an international-scale event like this will restore people’s perception that Jakarta is safe; that is the most important [thing],” Cucu told The Jakarta Post on Thursday, adding that the administration would do its best to bring people to actively participate in the event, understanding that there had been a backlash from the public following massive floods that hit Greater Jakarta last week.
