Indonesia's growth driven by newly-weds and policemen

In 2011 the ammount of tourists visiting Indonesian resorts grew by nearly 10% to over 7.6 million people, compared to 2010. The country is especially popular among Southeast and East Asian nations, like Singapore (1.25 milion tourists), Malasya (1.03 million), Japan (415 thousand) and Korea (302 thousand). The amount of visitors from these countries has grown by around 5-6%. The biggest increase in the inbound tourist flow to Indonesia is seen in Thailand (+20%), Australia (+21%) and Saudi Arabia (+21.5%).

The amount of Russian tourists has also gone up. In 2011 Indonesia was visited by nearly 91 thousand Russians, which is 15% more than in 2010. The winter period is showing to be the most popular – over 13 thousand Russian tourists went on vacation there in January, which is 26% more than during the same period the year before.

Tour operators working on this destination generally agree with the figures, however the head of Solvex-Travel’s Southeast Asian department Irina Yurina says, the tourist flow is also growing because of an increase in summer trips: “Our citizens have firmly secured Indonesia among the all-season destinations”. Mrs. Yurina has also reminded about newly-weds, who now pick Indonesian beaches for their honeymoons much more often. She added that most Russians go to Bali; it’s quite rare that other resorts are picked.

The head of Karlson Turism’s East, Asia, Indian Ocean and South America department Zhanna Snezhnitskaya has also confirmed the growth of demand for Indonesia. Moreover, she thinks this tendency is likely to continue: “Over 80% of our tourists go to Bali, the rest choose other resorts in Indonesia. This destination is yet to be fully explored by Russian tourists, especially that it’s possible to combine beaches with trips to other parts of the country and even the region in general”. She links last year’s jump in Indonesia’s popularity with the fact that it became quite fashionable going there and that Indonesia managed to dig into parts of the tourist flow to Thailand. Along with her colleague from Solvex, Zhanna Snezhnitskaya expects the Russian market to start moving away from seeing Indonesia as only a winter destination.

The head of Megapolus Tours Viktoriya Kizimova lists several reasons behind the growing interest towards Indonesia. She claims a major role was played by those who used to spend their vacations in Egypt. They chose Indonesia as an alternative mainly because of the tours’ affordable prices, which she thinks are caused by dumping: “Tours to Bali are sold below their prime cost for quite some time now”, - she said. However, the tours’ prices may have also gone down because of the change in demand for luxury hotels: “Not only those who can’t live in anything but five-star hotels go there now, the country is also visited by those who don’t mind staying in three-star hotels or even modest apartments”. Indonesia is also growing because of an increase of business-tourists and those living in regions with the growing presence of Russian tour operators, like Pegas Turistik for instance. Though very exotic, yet still quite realistic is Kizimova’s other version – that last year Indonesia became the most popular holiday destination among policemen, who starting from 2012 have been deprived of money compensation for their holiday airfares.