Easing of COVID-19 travel curbs a boon for Indonesia’s economy but timing requires calibration: Experts

Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut Panjaitan said last week that the visa policy has managed to attract more tourists coming into Bali, which saw its economy battered because of the pandemic. According to Indonesia’s Central Statistics Agency, around 80 per cent of Bali’s economy relies directly or indirectly on tourism.    

“The government will expand the use of Visa on Arrival targeting countries with great potential for incoming tourists as well as G20 countries. The government plans to implement Visa on Arrival for several airports like those in Jakarta and Surabaya,” he said on Mar 14.

Indonesia is planning to host a G20 summit in Bali in October.

Indonesia has also decided to scrap the requirement for a negative rapid antigen test for completely vaccinated individuals wishing to travel domestically on Mar 7, in an effort to boost the country’s aviation and tourism sectors. 

Airport operator, Angkasa Pura I said on Mar 16 that there has been a 20 per cent increase in the number of passengers, since the rapid antigen testing requirement for domestic travel was scrapped.

Its data showed that there were 761,234 passengers travelling through 15 major airports in Indonesia between Mar 8 and Mar 14, compared to 631,271 passengers for the first week of March. 

Meanwhile, the number of flights in operation has also increased to 7,208 between Mar 8 and Mar 14, a nine per cent increase from the week before where the airports only catered to 6,610 flights.

“The increase in domestic passenger traffic and flights after the latest travel regulation has sent a positive signal that the aviation and tourism industries are slowly being reinvigorated,” Angkasa Pura I president director Faik Fahmi said in a statement.

CONCERNS OVER HEALTH IMPACT

The government had earlier argued that the relaxation of curbs were introduced as the number of daily cases were declining, having surpassed its third wave caused by the highly transmissible but less life-threatening Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Indonesia recorded its highest number of COVID-19 infections over a 24-hour period on Feb 17 with nearly 64,000 cases. Last week, the figure fell to between 5,000 and 10,000 cases per day.

Hermawan Saputra, an advisor at the Indonesian Public Health Expert Association, however said that the declining number of cases is no excuse to eliminate some of the measures entirely, including the quarantine requirement.

“Quarantine is the most basic form of prevention and mitigation during an outbreak. We cannot get rid of quarantine completely because we are not only dealing with Omicron but also Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and other variants which are still around,” Mr Saputra told CNA.

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