Jakarta, The Indonesia Post – The Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy (Menparekraf) Sandiaga Uno said that to realize the vision of ASEAN as a single tourism destination (ASEAN as a single destination), interconnectivity is needed.
“The concept of ASEAN as a single destination must be supported by interconnectivity in terms of air flights and also more ferries connecting the Riau Archipelago as well as Singapore and Malaysia,” said Sandiaga Uno who was met after filling in a panel discussion at the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit (ABIS) in Jakarta, Sunday.
As Chair of ASEAN 2023, Indonesia is pushing for ASEAN’s image as a single/main destination in accordance with the spirit of the G20, namely as a transformation agent centered on community-based tourism.
Sandiaga said this vision had been sparked at the ASEAN Tourism Forum in January 2023, and had been strengthened through Indonesia’s membership on the UNWTO Executive Council.
He also continues to push for an increase in the number of flights and availability of seats to support connectivity from ASEAN to a number of Indonesia’s main tourism destinations and vice versa.
“We hope there will be more flights, I just returned from Belitung, there are no direct flights to Belitung, that must be increased. We must also connect Labuan Bajo with Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, we will add this in the next 2-3 months. the number of flights and the number of available seats,” he said.
Sandiaga acknowledged that the demand for flights to a number of Indonesian destinations was quite high, but the flights were still limited.
“I am working with the Minister of Transportation to increase the number of flights with airlines to increase the availability of seats and very expensive destinations such as Labuan Bajo and Sorong. I am from Belitung which is also expensive, this is what we are trying to add to the number of flights,” he said.
Sandiaga said that discussions with the Minister of Transportation had reached the final stage and it was hoped that there would be good news on additional flights before the end of the year.
“We hope that before the end of the year there will be several direct flights, we can present this,” he said. (mhn/bbs)
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