President Joko Widodo has followed through with his plan to relax visa regulations for foreign visitors to Indonesia.

According to the Indonesia Cabinet Secretariat website, the visa-free travel regulation came into effect as of 9 June 2015. 

China, Japan and South Korea are amongst the 30 new countries whose citizens may now travel visa-free to Indonesia through ten immigration check points including Soekarno Hatta (Jakarta), Ngurah Rai (Bali) and Kuala Namu (Medan), Juanda (Surabaya), Hang Nadim (Batam) and several seaports in Bintan and Batam.

Despite being Indonesia’s third largest feeder market, Australia, which brought close to one million arrivals to the country in 2013, is not included in the list.

In 2014, Indonesia received approximately 8.52 million foreign visitors between January and November, a 7.29% growth over the same period in 2013; of these, approximately 3.4 million arrivals visited Bali, specifically.

The new regulation, which permits visitors to stay up to 30 days without the option of extensions, will no doubt continue to fuel visitor arrivals to Indonesian destinations.

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