Roundup: Indonesia bolsters digital technology use to better tap into booming tourism sector

Indonesia is taking serious steps to tap into more opportunities in the tourism sector, including offering digital solutions to help businesses provide better services to further their commercial reach and capture a greater share of a rapidly growing market.

The efforts are addressing the nation's ambitious target to see the number of foreign visitors increasing to 20 million annually in the next three years, or double that of the 10 million recorded last year.

Through the Indonesia Travel Exchange (ITX) digital system, the tourism ministry is facilitating those involved in the country's tourism industry, including tour operators, restaurants, car rental services, souvenir shops, airlines, and tour and travel agents, to fulfill the ever-increasing demands of their potential customers through advanced digital technology.

"Don't wait until you are left behind by your customers. Go digital if you want to win more customers now and in the future," Indonesian Tourism Minister, Arief Yahya, pointed out in advice given to businesspeople in the national tourism industry recently.

The minister said that through the "no-frills digital system," they can now offer their tour and service packages in more creative and competitive ways and run their operations on a real-time basis for their potential customers in the global market.

Arief highlighted the fact that using digital platforms are inevitable as digital technology is a staple in people's daily lives and there are an increasing number of internet-savvy customers in the world.

The ITX system initiated by the ministry now serves more than 6,000 national businesses in the tourism sector, which itself has been declared as the nation's new core business.

It provides various facilities including showcasing tour and service packages on offer, search engines to browse packages the customers are planning for, booking the packages, and transactions and payment solutions, which add no extra no charge for all these on-demand, clickable services.

As well as providing the digital technology system, the tourism ministry collaborated with a prominent internet firm to improve international awareness of the "Wonderful Indonesia" tourism logo and on Indonesia's tour destinations.

In doing so, the ministry embraced China's prominent internet search engine Baidu to extensively engage KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) comprising bloggers and travel analysts to actively promote tourism in Indonesia.

The tie-up was sealed in May this year in Indonesia's resort island of Bali when Baidu held its travel summit there. It was the first of its annual summits held outside China.

Cooperation with Baidu is essential as China is the ultimate market for Indonesia's tourism sector, market insiders with knowledge of the matter have said and Indonesia has seen increasing revenue from the tourism sector to its economy.

Arief said that the sector contributed 10 percent to national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) last year, and was ranked the fourth largest sector to contribute forex for the state's coffers.

The minister also said the tourism sector has demonstrated positive growth, increasing 4.8 percent last year with 6.9 percent expected this year. The rapid rise of the tourism sector has seen previous economic pillars, including agriculture, automotive and mining industries lag behind of late.

The tourism sector has been identified as the nation's new hope to face the ongoing impact from the global economic downturn that has battered the domestic economy, the minister said.

The sector is now capable to create more jobs up to 9.8 million, the fourth largest or 8.4 percent from the nation's industry sector.

"In terms of job creation, the tourism sector saw 30 percent growth in the last 5 years. Needless to say, by focusing more on the sector, more of the nation's problems can be settled," the minister said.

Related ministries and agencies are now in process of developing 10 new tour destinations across the archipelago nation, designed to be on a par with Bali. The program is expected to net more than 24 billion U.S. dollars by 2019. Endit