Domestic tourism fertile for development in Indonesia

THE changing lifestyles of Indonesia's growing middle class are carving out a significant opportunity for travel and tourism players.

Speaking at the Indonesia Hospitality & Tourism Investment Conference in Jakarta recently, Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board chairman, Chatib Basri, said: “There was a 40 million increase in the number of middle-class Indonesians (between 2003 and 2010), and that is bigger than the populations of Malaysia, Singapore and Australia put together.

“People are willing to pay US$200 per dish at a food festival with a celebrity chef from France, and they spend thousands of dollars to buy batik products, something that would not have happened five years ago,” he noted.

“What I’m trying to say is that there is a huge opportunity for investment in tourism and hospitality in Indonesia to meet domestic customers’ demands.”

He cited how the growth of LCCs within Indonesia had not only improved domestic connectivity but allowed more people to travel to exotic local destinations such as Lombok by making flights affordable.

Marriott International’s executive vice president, Asia-Pacific, Paul Foskey, quoted China as a case study of a country that has been successful in developing domestic tourism.

“The country has seen huge infrastructure investment, everything from highways to airports and railways. (There has also been) a lot of encouragement for developers to build leisure destinations,” he said, adding that Sanya had managed to develop itself into a prominent domestic travel destination. 

“Sanya has the highest RevPAR in all of China purely through the domestic leisure market,” noted Foskey.

The Chinese government has also created national holidays to encourage domestic tourism, he said.

“So hopefully the (Indonesian) government and private sector can really work together and promote domestic tourism.”

Sourced: ttgasia