The Indonesian government has said it is confident of achieving its ambitious target of welcoming 20 million international visitors by 2019.
In a recent statement, the country’s Minister of Tourism, Arief Yahya, said he is very optimistic of reaching his goal, to the extent that he is even considering bringing the schedule forward to 2017.
“Both I and the president have the ‘feeling’ that 20 million [international arrivals] can be achieved even earlier. 2017 has been mentioned – two years ahead of schedule,” Yahya said.
Reaching the target by 2017, and even 2019, would require a dramatic increase in visitor numbers. Last year Indonesia welcomed 9.44m overseas visitors, 7.2% more than in 2013. If this annual growth rate continues over the next five years, Indonesia will still be more than six million visitors short of its target by 2019.
But the government is hoping to boost arrivals by adding another 30 countries to its visa waiver list in 2016.
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