Indonesia's decision to scrap its visa-free facility for 37 countries will hurt the tourism industry, already reeling from the Bali bombing, the Iraq war and the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) scare, industry sources said yesterday.
The government on Tuesday announced its decision to scrap its 60-day free-visa-on-arrival for 37 countries, including major tourist markets such as Australia, Germany, Japan and the US, based on a decree signed by President Megawati Sukarnoputri on March 31.
"The timing is not right to implement the new visa policy, particularly after the Bali bombing, followed by the SARS scare and the Iraq war," said Meity Robot, chairwoman of the Indonesian Tour and Travel Agencies Association (ASITA).
Indonesia, which drew 4.8 million tourists last year, has set a target of attracting some six million tourists this year.
Already hurting from last October's terrorist attack in Bali, that killed at least 202 people -- mostly Western tourists -- Robot predicted the combination of Iraq, SARS and the new visa policy would result in the government falling far short of its arrival target this year.
Indonesian authorities have been discussing the scrapping of the 60-day visa-free facility for almost two years, ostensibly to crack down on businessmen who abuse the system by working in the country and fly to Singapore once every two months to renew their visas.
Under the decree, in the future only citizens from 11 countries will be entitled to visa-free entry for 60 days, including Brunei, Chile, Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia, Morocco, Peru, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Turkey.
The remaining 37 countries that were formerly allowed free-visas, will in six months time to obliged to pay US$35 for tourist visas, which will be good for only 30 days, non-extendable, government sources said.
The free-visa policy was introduced in 1983 as a means of promoting tourism in Indonesia.
"I'm against this change in policy, because in my opinion we still need the free visas as a sort of promotion," said I Gde Pitana, director of the Bali Government Tourism Office.
Indonesia's main regional competitors for international tourists still offer free visas on arrival to nationals from major markets.
"We told the government long before the Bali bombing that if the new visa policy was implemented, Indonesia would be less competitive with neighboring countries such as Singapore and Thailand," said ASITA's Robot.
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