Jakarta (ANTARA) - President Joko Widodo has instructed his administration to add flight slots to anticipate an increase in domestic and foreign tourist trips during the year-end holidays, Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Uno has informed.

"Searches from tourism activities in Indonesia are already above 2.8 billion; outdoing Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia. It is necessary to add flight slots, and earlier the President's instruction was to add more flight slots so that there will be more seats available," Minister Uno said after a meeting at the Presidential Palace here on Monday.

So far, the dynamic of the Christmas and New Year holiday season has remained conducive, he noted. The government will still conduct monitoring for one week to see the trend of tourist visits during that time, he added.

He estimated that domestically, the number of tourist trips would reach 800 million by the end of the year, higher than the government's target of 703 million trips. Meanwhile, the government has estimated that foreign tourist trips will reach 5.3 million, or above the target of 3.6 million trips.

Minister Uno said he expects that through the government's initiative of adding flight slots, airplane ticket prices would also decline during the holiday season.

The government is carrying out an analysis to add flight slots at Tangerang’s Soekarno Hatta International Airport, Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport, Surabaya’s Juanda International Airport, Yogyakarta International Airport, and Kualanamu Deli Serdang International Airport.

"Meanwhile, (as for) flights to tourist destinations, there are Wakatobi, Morotai, and also additional flights to tourist destinations such as Lake Toba and Likupang, North Sulawesi," Minister Uno informed.

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Translator: Indra Arief P, Mecca Yumna
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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