Bali and Beyond Travel Fair to be hold in Nusa Dua Convention center , June 27/30 th 2018
This years l Bali and Beyond Travel Fair for 5 th edition will take place at the
Bali Nusa Dua Convention Center from June 27 to June 30 th 2018
. The travel fair will not be only to promote Indonesian destinations,
but also be a marketplace for other countries.
Organized by the Bali chapter of the Association
of the Indonesian Tours and Travel Agencies (Asita),
BBTF is a business-to-business event for local travel industry players
to sell travel packages to foreign buyers.
Buyers include travel wholesalers, retailers,
agents, conventions and incentive organizers.
The Tourism Ministry main sponsor,
has been working to turn the event into a
marketplace with more sellers from overseas,
but South Korea Tourism Organization was the sole foreign seller in BBTF 2017.
More countries will be present this year will be attending the event, including
Vietnam, United Arab Emirates , Bhutan, Myanmar, Cambodia and Thailand.
BBTF is also sticking to its main mission to market local destinations and help the
Tourism Ministry to achieve its target of attracting 20 million foreign visitors in 2018.
This year’s fair will set aside a pavilion to promote the ministry’s
10 top priority destinations, dubbed as the "10 New Balis."
There will also be a post-event tour to show the potentials of nearby tourist destinations
Banyuwangi (East Java), Kupang and Lembata (East Nusa Tenggara)
and Tana Toraja (South Sulawesi).
The 2017 fair recorded a 408 USD million turnover from
174 sellers and 198 domestic and foreign buyers.
this year they expect the number to reach Rp 7.8 trillion.
To achieve this, the government is promoting tourism destinations other than Bali,
which is widely considered one of the world's best holiday spots.
Tripadvisor, the world's largest travel site,
announced its Best Travelers' Choices this month, which featured Bal
i in fourth place in the top destinations category,
making the island Asia's best tourism destination.
Indonesia announced plans in 2016 to prioritize
the development of 10 tourism destinations across the archipelago –
known as the "Ten New Balis"
due to their potential to boost the country's tourism industry.
The list includes Wakatobi in Southeast Sulawesi
, Morotai in North Maluku and the Thousand Islands in Jakarta.
With ongoing plans to develop infrastructure and amenities in selected locations,
attract more investment and advance tourism, Indonesia appears
on track to achieving its ambitious target of
attracting 20 million visitors annually by 2019.
Government officials have been vigorously promoting
these locations ever since, while President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo
has been raising the matter in his meetings with foreign leaders and business group
s abroad as part of efforts to attract both tourists and investments.
The Ministry of Tourism also actively engaged in
various promotional efforts, with Wonderful Indonesia billboards
in Times Square in New York and Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo.
Despite continuous eruptions of Mount Agung in Bali since last year,
Indonesia welcomed 14 million foreign tourists in 2017
– an increase of almost 22 percent from the year before,
though still short of the 15-million target.
The shift from Bali as the country's main tourist destination
is expected to aid plans to attract more foreign tourists,
which is expected to boost foreign-exchange earnings and increase employment.
The World Travel and Tourism Council estimates that Indonesia's current efforts
to develop its tourism industry will help generate 2.4 million new jobs in the country.
The Tourism Ministry said in November last year that development
will be refocused on four of the original 10 locations
. These are Lake Toba in North Sumatra, Borobudur in
Central Java, Mandalika in West Nusa Tenggara and Labuan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara.
Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan
said efforts to develop these locations would be integrated to make
the results more effective and eliminate mistakes as far as possible.
Various efforts have also been directed at promoting these areas a
"digital destinations" to further popularize them on social media.
While the natural beauty of these priority destinations is undisputed,
what has the government been doing to
facilitate a better experience for visitors to these locations?
Lake Toba
As part of efforts to turn Lake Toba into an
international-standard destination, the government
has improved access to the area by upgrading the nearest airport.
Silangit International Airport in North Tapanuli,
North Sumatra, started to serve direct flights
from Singapore and Malaysia in October last year.
It previously took travelers around five hours to reach Lake Toba
from Kualanamu International Airport outside Medan.