Arief said air connectivity was important as almost 80 percent of foreign tourists came to Indonesia by air transportation with most of the traffic concentrated at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang and Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali.

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The ministry is currently trying to achieve this year’s target of attracting 15 million foreign tourists to the country; it is still two million short of reaching the targeted number.

To tackle the issue, the ministry has formed a special unit called the Air Accessibility Improvement Team led by a special staff member for the infrastructure sector, Judi Rifajantoro, and a technical expert for the air connectivity sector, Robert Waloni. 

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The team has three main objectives, to communicate with the ministry regarding traffic rights between countries and to speed up the process of creating a new route; to build business coordination between related parties to ensure airports’ availability for an additional slot-time whenever there is a new airline route or an increase in airline flight frequency; and to build a partnership with airlines and wholesalers to attract more foreign tourists.

The ministry also introduced two partnership programs, namely a promotion partnership for regular flight routes and an incentive program for those who manage to bring foreign tourists to travel new routes using chartered flights. (kes)

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