Popular destination for Indonesians

Although many Indonesian tourists are choosing to spend their holidays in Europe or Japan, Hong Kong is still one of the most popular tourist destinations for Indonesians.

The number of Indonesian tourists visiting Hong Kong continues to increase from year to year, albeit not significantly. And tourist arrivals to Hong Kong from Indonesia have remained stable in recent months despite the fact that the overall economic condition of Indonesia has remained bleak.

"Indonesian tourists keep coming. Our company books at least 1,000 hotel rooms every day for them," said Willy Fung, the tour coordinator at the Hong Kong-based Southsea Tourist Ltd.

Willy, who acts as a tour guide for Indonesian tourists, has seen no significant change in the flow of Indonesian tourists to Hong Kong since the financial crisis hit Indonesian in late 1997.

The crisis, which significantly reduced the value of the Indonesian rupiah against foreign currencies, seems to have had little impact on the number of Indonesian tourists arriving in Hong Kong.

According to the latest data from the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB), the number of Indonesian tourist arrivals in Hong Kong was 223,590 in 2002, an increase of 5.3 percent from 212,260 in 2001. In December, the number of Indonesian tourists totaled 48,344, a 1.7 percent increase from December last year.

Total tourist arrivals in Hong Kong reached 16.5 million in 2002, an increase of 20.7 percent from the 13.73 million visitors welcomed in 2001.

New tourist records were set almost every month as 2002 progressed, and December proved to be no exception. Lured by the varied attractions of HKTB's Hong Kong WinterFest and other seasonal activities, a total of 1.66 million visitors arrived in Hong Kong during December, comfortably breaking the previous monthly record of 1.58 million set just two months earlier.

Including the first five days of January, more than 1.9 million visitors came to Hong Kong during the five-week Hong Kong WinterFest (Dec. 1 to Jan. 5) -- a result comfortably exceeding HKTB's original target of 1.7 million. Year-on-year growth for the WinterFest period was over 28 percent.

Once again, mainland China was the star performer. December arrivals from the mainland hit a new high for the third month in succession, soaring 64.7 percent to 753,974. In total, mainland arrivals in 2002 reached 6.82 million, a remarkable 53.4 percent increase over the 2001 figure. This followed a series of visa relaxation measures agreed on by the Central Government during the year.

HKTB chairman Selina Chow noted that China was the world's fastest-growing travel market and Hong Kong was ideally placed to continue benefiting from this.

"Obviously, we're delighted to see this huge growth in mainland arrivals, which has come at a very opportune time for Hong Kong's retail and restaurant sectors," Chow said.

"But this shouldn't be allowed to obscure the fact that we have performed extremely well in all our other short-haul and long-haul markets, too."

All markets recorded positive growth in 2002, and all are now back to pre-Sept. 11 levels, with arrivals from the three long- haul markets all showing increases of at least 6 percent. Hong Kong's 2002 performance also outshone those of its regional competitors, even though most other destinations in the region also benefited strongly from increased mainland arrivals.

Chow said that China's growing attraction worldwide as an inbound destination, as well as its huge potential for further outbound growth, allowed great optimism for Hong Kong's continued strong performance in the years ahead.

"It's vital, however, that all sectors of the industry are ready and able to meet the challenges of these growing numbers in terms of hotel developments, timeliness of new attractions and the general upgrading of service standards and quality," she emphasized.

All long-haul and short-haul markets showed substantial growth in December 2002. Mainland China led the way with 753,974 arrivals, a 64.7 percent increase on the December 2001 figure which was itself a new record at that time. Arrivals from South and South East Asia increased by 10.9 percent to 243,969, led by India which recorded 24 percent growth. Taiwan contributed 204,841 arrivals, a 2.5 percent growth, while North Asian arrivals increased by 12.4 percent to 169,722, with Japan showing year-on-year growth of 14 percent.

In the long-haul markets, Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific showed the strongest growth in December, with arrivals increasing by 16.8 percent compared with the same month in 2001, to reach 39,907. Arrivals from Europe, Africa and the Middle East increased by 9.8 percent to 95,043 and those from the Americans by 8.5 percent to 109,386.

For the full year of 2002, the picture is again dominated by mainland China which accounted for 41.2 percent of all arrivals, nearly 6.83 million in total. Taiwan remained Hong Kong's second largest source market with 2.43 million arrivals, a modest 0.4 percent growth in a difficult year for the Taiwan economy. South and Southeast Asia was third, with arrivals in 2002 growing 9.1 percent to 1.91 million.

--Hendarsyah Tarmizi