At the meeting, Wattanavrangkul praised the Mobile Positioning Data (MPD) system implemented by Indonesia at arrival gates to track foreign tourists. 

“What’s important about MDP is the customer data, from which we can get information about their travel habits and thus learn how to create a tourism promotional package tailored to their preferences,” said Arief.

Another digital novelty discussed was that of online travel agents like Airbnb, which are changing the hotel industry. Such business is called “unregistered accommodation,” because everything is done online through an app that is available at every app store.

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In Indonesia, the ministry has launched a Digital Market Place concept called Indonesia Tourism Xchange (ITX) to accommodate all kinds of businesses in the tourism industry, especially the ones directly connected to the 3A’s of tourism: Attraction, Access and Accommodation.

Apart from digital innovation in tourism, other topics discussed at the meeting included the opening of a new route from Thailand to Solo, which Thai Lion Air has expressed interest in.

Another topic was the Sabang-Langkawi-Phuket triangle initiative to have upcoming international yacht rallies visit Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.

The two ministers also agreed to develop the Middle Eastern market together through joint promotion at several events.

Arief noted that more than 2 million Indonesian pilgrims travel to the Middle East. “Most of the airlines don’t have any passengers when they travel back to Indonesia. We can use this to add another route like, Indonesia-Thailand,” he said. (kes)