ITB Asia 2017 visitors show interest in Bali

The participation of Indonesia at the ITB Asia 2017 in Singapore on Oct. 25-27 resulted in the potential transaction of Rp 342 billion (US$25.4 million), or up 30.66 percent from last year’s event that earned Rp 262 billion.

Moreover, based on the questionnaire given to 90 industry players throughout the three-day event, up to 2,280 appointments were reportedly made and 338,770 tour packages sold.

“Bali is still a favorite with 55.34 percent from the total of potential transaction,” explained Tourism Ministry's Southeast Asia tourism promotion assistant deputy, Rizki Handayani.

Behind Bali was West Nusa Tenggara with 5.89 percent, East Nusa Tenggara with 5.25 percent, Jakarta with 3.17 percent and other places with 26.57 percent.

ITB Asia is a tourism business forum organized by Internationale Tourismus-Borse Berlin (ITB) that holds the biggest travelmart event in the world every year.

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At this year’s event, Indonesia adopted the traditional phinisi boat design on its 405-meter square booth and brought along a total of 90 tourism industry players who hailed from places such as Aceh, North Sumatra, Riau Islands, South Sumatra, Banten, Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta, East Java, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Central Kalimantan, Southeast Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Papua, West Papua.

There were also 74 industry players acting as co-delegates and six tourism departments from Aceh, West Sumatra, Bangka Belitung, South Sumatra, Central Java and South Sulawesi participating in the event.

People who visited the booth were served with Indonesian coffee, spa corner by Sariayu Martha Tilaar, Virtual Reality (VR) 360 corner, demo corner by Prijadi K. and VIP corner.

ITB Asia 2017 itself broke a new record by presenting 940 exhibitors from 113 countries, up to 11 percent from last year. This year around 22,000 business appointments were reportedly made at the event.