Kota Kinabalu: There will soon be an increase to flights serving the Malaysia-Indonesia route in response to the sharp increase in the number of arrivals from Indonesia, said Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing.
He said the ministry will strive to open more routes and flight frequencies to meet the growing market demand.
“Malaysia welcomed 247,889 and 222,923 visitors from Indonesia in January and February of this year respectively, a significant increase compared to 1,714 and 1,756 arrivals respectively recorded in January and February last year,” he said on Facebook.
“In 2022, the total number of Indonesian tourist arrivals reached 1.48 million. In January and February alone this year, Indonesian tourist arrivals entering Malaysia have already reached 470,812. This clearly indicates that Malaysia and Indonesia’s tourism sector is recovering well.”
Tiong said as of April this year, Indonesia has reopened 12 entry points, with 482 weekly flights between Indonesia and Malaysia, totalling 83,276 seats.
However, according to him, this is still only 70.2% of the pre-pandemic period when there were 685 weekly flights in February 2020.
“As AirAsia is starting its twice-weekly Kertajati-KL on 17 May, it will also add the Jakarta-Kuching route flying three times weekly. As we are welcoming more visitors from Indonesia, we expect that the total number of arrivals would exceed 1.48 million recorded last year but the current number of flights cannot yet cope with this trend of increasing visitor volume,” he said.
“In view of this, I have requested the Indonesian office of the Malaysian Tourism Board to ramp up engagement with the Indonesian government and their tourism counterparts to increase direct flights with Malaysian states to meet market demand.”
The ministry is committed to increasing the number of flights between our two countries, especially during the peak holiday periods.
This, he said, would greatly stimulate our mutual tourism industry, promote economic development, all the while building stronger links between our peoples.
“We will continue to cooperate closely with the Indonesian government to jointly promote tourism development for the benefit of the economy and people of Malaysia and Indonesia.”
