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THE DISCOURSE to free foreign tourists who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 from quarantine obligations is being discussed. This emerged when President Joko Widodo attended the 13th Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) Summit.
“ASEAN leaders in the IMT-GT and Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) sub-regions agreed that one of the things that will be encouraged is to restore the travel corridor, and also encourage how to use the travel corridor. Vaccinated Travel Lanes (VTL),” said Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto during a press conference at the BIMP-EAGA and IMF-GT Summits, recently.
Basically, travelers who join this scheme are exempt from quarantine as long as they have obtained a complete COVID-19 vaccine.
Singapore is one of the countries that implement VTL with a number of other countries, including Brunei Darussalam, Germany, France, and the Netherlands, reported from safetravel.ica.gov.sg. Airlangga added that VTL is considered as a step by the government to advance the tourism industry affected by the pandemic and encourage foreign tourists to travel to the archipelago.
During the pandemic, the rate of foreign tourist arrivals to Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand experienced a sharp decline from 40 million visits in 2019 to 8.2 million in 2020.
Quarantine period makes it difficult to attract foreign tourists
Until now, the government has implemented a five-day quarantine period for foreign tourists. This requirement is a challenge for the government to attract foreign tourists to visit Indonesia.
The Deputy for Marketing at the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, Nia Niscaya, acknowledged this. “Indeed, the obstacle is the necessity of a five-day quarantine. Some from Australia, for example, (who asked) can the quarantine be reduced to two days,” Nia said during the Weekly Press Briefing of the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy.
Not only that, tourism actors in Indonesia also proposed that the quarantine period for foreign tourists be reduced. One of the reasons is that foreign tourists have to incur additional costs and extend the duration of their trip. Especially if their country of origin also imposes a quarantine.
“But again, the quarantine problem has made our sales a bit sluggish. One in terms of cost, the second in terms of time,” said Chairperson of the Indonesian Travel Agent Association (Astindo) Pauline Suharno. [Kompas.com/photo special]
