New visa hurts RI's tourism
Maybe we should thank Julia Sitorus for contributing her arguments in favor of stricter visa policies (The Jakarta Post, May 19). Her arguments contain so many errors and factual fallacies that I wonder if the piece was not intended to be satire?
Specifically, her claim that "Data compiled by immigration reveals that most visa-free entries were abused by foreigners", means that more than half of Indonesia's five million tourists are not visiting as tourists but for work or business? I submit that Indonesia's immigration office possesses no such data at all. It is more likely that 99 percent of all tourist arrivals in Indonesia are fully bona fide.
Sitorus then goes on to contend that most tourists from China "turned out to be smugglers of merchandise from the Chinese mainland". From my own observations of those polite and well behaved Chinese tour groups waiting patiently in Indonesian immigration queues, I suggest that this contention is quite absurd.
The visa debate also treats the long staying tourist badly. She says that: because most tourists stay an average of only 14 days "there is potential for abusing the visa among those who stay for the remaining 46 days". This contention ignores the major contribution made to Indonesia by the humble backpacker.
On the contrary, the great beach resorts of Southeast Asia were built on the backpacker's patronage. Specifically, Kuta Beach, Koh Samui and Goa all started back in the 1960s and 1970s as places with simple beach huts and palm thatched shacks where local families served young Westerners tasty food and simple accommodation for budget prices.
Ironically, some 20 years ago, Australia made a study of Indonesia's vibrant backpacker market and built a whole industry on it.
Indonesia's best tourism customer is now Indonesia's strongest tourism competitor, as Australia now earns more tourist dollars from the budget backpacker than Indonesia does itself.
Sitorus wrongly states that the free-visa policy has been in effect for 10 years. It has, in fact, been in effect for more like 20 years. The free-visa policy was a landmark for Indonesian tourism, making this great archipelago accessible to a new kind of less adventurous tourist, which helped turn those crude thatched beach huts into grand resorts.
See now a generation on: those local Kuta families now own five-star hotels and restaurants. And those same US$1/day backpackers are back with wives, children and grandchildren in tow, with a family budget more like $500/day.
EVAN WILLIS, Sydney, Australia