JAKARTA, 22 March 2006 — In an attempt to help boost the declining number of foreign visitors to Indonesia, the government is planning to expand the visa-on-arrival facility, local media reports said yesterday.
Indonesia’s already fragile tourism sector has been hit by the second suicide bombings on the resort island of Bali last October, which further plunged the arrival of foreign visitors to the country.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla told tourism sector businessmen in Bali on Monday that the government would extend the permitted length of stay from the current two weeks to between one and three months.
“A two-week stay is not enough for tourists. We will extend this period in order to attract more visitors to Bali and other tourist destinations around the country,” the Jakarta Post quoted Kalla as saying.
There are 34 countries that qualify for the visa-on-arrival status.
Indonesia missed its tourist-arrivals target of 6 million last year, triggered by various problems, largely blamed on the Oct. 1 Bali suicide bombings that killed 23 people in the second attack targeting Westerners on the island in three years.
The decline was also attributed to the December 26, 2004 tsunami, which devastated Aceh province and left some 168,000 people listed as dead or missing, and an outbreak of bird flu, which has killed eight people in the country, government official have said.
Kalla urged the players in the tourism sector to focus on attracting more tourists from the Middle East following a decline in the number of visitors from traditional markets such as Japan and Australia.
“We should start focusing on tourists form the Arab world. We should start publishing holiday brochures in Arabic as well as teaching more tourist guides the language,” Kalla said.
Besides from expanding the visas on demand, the government would also provide around $7.3 million this year for promoting Bali abroad.
