In an effort to raise its World Economic Forum (WEF) competitiveness rank from 70 to 30, the Indonesian Tourist Ministry aims to increase Chinese tourist numbers from 9m in 2015 to 20m by 2019. Indonesia's Central Statistics Bureau (BPS) has shown that from January to August 2015, Chinese tourists visiting Indonesia increased to 20.74% (to 779,348 visitors) in comparison with the same period last year. Arief Tourism Minister, the Indonesian Yahya, said that Chinese tourists are the country's most important visitors and the government expects that a total of 2m people will visit Indonesia in 2016. Tourism Minister suggested that it will take a great effort to achieve this number, and these efforts will need to include making contacts with Chinese, Malaysian and Vietnamese authorities to promote Indonesia and the expansion of destination options within the country. Recent regulatory measures introduced to meet this aim have included granting free visas for Chinese tourists, boosting direct flights from China to Indonesia, preparing 600 Chinese-speaking guides and a teacher exchange programme to learn each other’s culture and languages.
In an effort to raise its World Economic Forum (WEF) competitiveness rank from 70 to 30, the Indonesian Tourist Ministry aims to increase Chinese tourist numbers from 9m in 2015 to 20m by 2019. Indonesia's Central Statistics Bureau (BPS) has shown that from January to August 2015, Chinese tourists visiting Indonesia increased to 20.74% (to 779,348 visitors) in comparison with the same period last year. Arief Yahya, the Indonesian Tourism Minister, said that Chinese tourists are the country's most important visitors and the government expects that a total of 2m people will visit Indonesia in 2016. Yahya suggested that it will take a great effort to achieve this number, and these efforts will need to include making contacts with Chinese, Malaysian and Vietnamese authorities to promote Indonesia and the expansion of destination options within the country. Recent regulatory measures introduced to meet this aim have included granting free visas for Chinese tourists, boosting direct flights from China to Indonesia, preparing 600 Chinese-speaking guides and a teacher exchange programme to learn each other’s culture and languages.