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THE MINISTRY of Tourism as Indonesia’s representative in the Travel Exchange (Travex) ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) 2025, which was held in Johor Bahru, Malaysia from January 15 to 17, 2024, presented a number of new programs to support Indonesia’s leading tourism development programs.
According to the Deputy for Marketing, Ni Made Ayu Marthini in her statement, Friday (01/17), 2025 said that the Tourism Village Development Program remains a leading program in Indonesia’s tourism development. However, there are several new programs presented to strengthen the existing programs.
“Indonesia’s participation in Travex ATF 2025 is the right media to introduce new programs related to Indonesia’s tourism development. Among them are the clean tourism movement, tourism digitalization or tourism 5.0, and the development of special interest tourism attractions,” Ni Made said.
Ni Made explained that these new programs were presented as an effort to showcase quality and sustainable tourism in Indonesia. In this way, Indonesia can be better known in the international market, especially in the Southeast Asian market.
“The ASEAN market still has a lot of potential to be optimized. It is recorded that the number of tourist arrivals from ASEAN countries in the eleven months in 2024 reached 4,303,773 tourists,” she affirmed.
In addition, Ni Made said that on this occasion, the Ministry of Tourism cooperated with the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia (KJRI) Johor Bahru, the Johor State Government and the Riau Islands Provincial Government to strengthen connectivity from Johor to Indonesia and vice versa, as well as initiate cooperation in the cross-border promotion program.
As one of the working areas of KJRI Johor Bahru, the state of Johor is geographically, demographically, artistically, culturally and historically close to the Riau Islands.
“Because of this proximity, many issues of economic trade, investment, tourism and arts and culture run parallel between the two countries. Therefore, we need to present a program that can be felt by the people of Johor and the Riau Islands,” Ni Made added.
Meanwhile the Indonesian Consul General in Johor Bahru, Sigit Suryantoro Widiyanto, added that in order to increase foreign tourist visits, especially in the border areas between Indonesia and Malaysia, the Riau Islands Province and the state of Johor have initiated a cross-border promotion program cooperation.
“One form of the cross-regional tourism promotion program is the planned implementation of the Special Border Treatment (SBT) program, which is expected to increase tourist visits by Johor residents to Kepri and Kepri residents to Johor. Regarding the SBT plan, the Riau Islands Regional Tourism Promotion Agency and Tourism Johor are currently in the technical implementation discussion stage with tourism stakeholders in their respective regions,” Sigit concluded.
Based on preliminary data, the potential for business-to-business transactions at the Wonderful Indonesia Pavilion has reached IDR 41.1 billion by the second day of Travex ATF 2025. This amount is expected to increase until the last day of Travex ATF 2025. [traveltext.id]
