Tourism and the 'baby boomers'

Rob Goodfellow University of Wollongong New South Wales Australia

In his letter last month to The Jakarta Post, Sydney-based Evan Willis correctly asserted that "the US$1 per day backpackers of the 1970s are coming back to Indonesia with wives, children and grandchildren in tow, with a family budget more like $500/day".

This potential bonanza for Indonesian tourism is speared- headed by the wealthy generation known as the "baby boomers" -- people born between 1945 and 1960, who are predicted to spend their considerable retirement incomes on travel and lifestyle.

Research shows that the "baby boomers" don't intend to leave their estates and superannuation lump sum incomes to their children. Rather they will spend generously on themselves and on quality pursuits such as extended foreign holidays.

Evidence indicates that this involves a desire to live within communities. From this orientation naturally flows philanthropy and community development. In Indonesia today there is ample evidence of such. I know of many retired Australians who holiday in Bali and Java every year and have long-standing friendships with Indonesian families. This is not to mention the Europeans or the Japanese.

Often these friendships involve timely support for families with children and sometimes university sponsorships for young adults. In addition here are also the business and networking opportunities that result from such contacts.

This flow of ideas is not just one way. Thousands of Australians such as myself have been wonderfully enriched by our experiences of Indonesia. And so the wheel turns.

My group of friends have sponsored young Indonesians to work and study abroad. We have even fully funded a goodwill cultural performance. For example, last year "the Australian Friends of ISI" (The Indonesian Art Institute) sponsored a program of classical music that was enjoyed, at no cost, by over 1,000 ordinary people in Yogyakarta.

To add to this we have patronized local artists and entrepreneurs, by supporting them in their early stages of training and development. In a sense this is a consequence of my first visit to Indonesia in 1983, when I backpacked with my wife for two months from Java to Flores in East Nusa Tenggara -- on free visa entry.

Last year I had the pleasure of leading an Australian delegation to Bali to meet with the Governor Dewa Berata, and President Megawati Soekarnoputri. At this time the issue of free extended visas was enthusiastically discussed at a number of levels.

This included peak tourism bodies, the local Chamber of Commerce (Kadin) and the press. It was identified, for example, that three to six month free visa entry, with simple provisions for extension, could potentially attract hundreds of thousands of cashed-up retired Australians, who wanted to escape the wet, cold and windy eastern Australian winter months of June, July and August and spend the tropical dry season in Bali.

As Willis suggests, the free-visa policy was a landmark for Indonesian tourism -- it was the beginning of the great tourism boom of the 1980s and 1990s that saw Bali and Yogyakarta grow and prosper and engage people from Australia, Europe and the United States.

These visitors have a special affinity for Indonesia and the Indonesian people. Regrettably, despite all the positive spin from the authorities, the reintroduction of a visa fee system would have been the beginning of the end for Indonesian tourism, and for Indonesia's opportunity to develop a relationship with the "baby boomer" generation who genuinely desire the sort of meaningful people to people cultural exchange that is the stuff of enlightened globalization.

The government's decision to postpone until further notice its controversial decision to revoke its visa-free policy will be a huge relief to the struggling tourism sector, particularly in Bali and Yogyakarta.

The new visa structure would have never produced a positive outcome for Indonesia. It would not have attracted working people with families. It would not have impressed the baby boomers. In fact retired Australians are already choosing other destinations such as Fiji, Vanuatu, and even war-ravaged East Timor, as preferable to Indonesia. There is no time to waste in taking advantage of this massive potential tourism market.

During my PhD research field work in Yogyakarta I was fortunate to have had the support of very powerful and influential people who ensured that my visa extensions were conducted without complication.

However many of my colleagues were not so lucky and were forced to pay bribes to officials. Apart from the grasping mean- spirited and unfounded anti-foreign message the new visa regulation conveys, the practicalities of enforcing the new visa structure actually open up another opportunity for "special administrative fees" within the corruption-riddled immigration service.

Now that the authorities have decided not to punish those hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors who have fallen in love with Indonesia, the Immigration Department would be better served to eliminate institutionalized corruption from within their ranks, remove all impediments to long stay visitors, and relax controls of foreigners working in Indonesia.

The benefits would be immediate, both in terms of increased capital inflows and the exchange of ideas and networks. Indonesia needs friends. Indonesia has friends. It is simply a case of making it easier, not harder, to enrich Indonesia -- both financially and socially.