ABSTRACT
Introduction The tropical archipelago of Indonesia, with a population of 249 million people spread over a landmass of almost 2 million km2 encompassing over 20,000 islands, visually dominates the map of Southeast Asia. Its immense diversity of landscapes, culture, built heritage and natural resources oers innumerable options for visitors. However, Indonesia seems to have languished behind its regional neighbours in terms of international tourism arrivals, accounting for just 9% of arrivals to Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states in 2012. This gure is dwarfed by Malaysia and Thailand, which represented 28% and 25% of ASEAN overseas arrivals in 2012 respectively (ASEAN 2015). Yet, there is some discussion over the reliability of international arrivals data for Malaysia as the ocial published statistics do not separate arrivals from Singapore. If these are excluded (as Singapore does for Malaysian arrivals), the headline arrivals gures of 25.7 million in 2013 (United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) 2014) could be adjusted downwards by as much as 10-11 million. In that case, Indonesia’s international arrivals gure of 8.8 million in 2013 appears less dramatic in comparison (UNWTO 2014). In this chapter we explore recent trends in international and domestic tourism in the context of national policy and planning in Indonesia, and discuss the prospects for enhancing the country’s role as a regional tourist destination.
