Indonesia keen to tap more Chinese tourists during Spring Festival holiday

JAKARTA - Indonesia is seeking to attract more Chinese tourists by adopting several measures for the week-long Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, holiday when the outbound tourism reaches a peak next month, a senior official at the tourism ministry here has said.

Deputy Tourism Minister for overseas promotion I Gde Pitana told Xinhua in a interview Tuesday that the anticipating moves had been initiated since October this year.

"The ministry will hold the Rhythm Spring Festival music concert in China and release various family trip packages for Chinese visitors," Pitana said.

Meanwhile, Indonesian Tourism Minister Arief Yahya is going to extend congratulations and greetings to all Chinese people via media, Pitana added.

Noting the good momentum of the bilateral tourism cooperation, Pitana said Indonesia is enjoying a strong growth of Chinese visitors to Indonesia.

According to Pitana, from January to October this year Indonesia welcomed 1.47 million Chinese tourists, a 19 percent growth compared with the same period last year.

The tourism ministry expects to welcome 2 million Chinese tourists in the whole year of 2016.

Pitana stated that Chinese tourists have also showed improving trends in terms of spending and length of stay in the country, representing an average of $1,100 per visit and 6.4 days respectively.

"Those figures were higher than the tourists from Singapore and Malaysia, other big five' countries to supply tourists for Indonesia." He said.

China's outbound tourists continued to grow in recent years. According to China Tourism Research Institute, China had 120 million outbound tourists in 2015 with total spending up to $104.5 billion.