Ten Platinum Buyers Confirm Participation At Bali Travel Fair

Denpasar (Antara Bali)- Ten prospective buyers belonging to the platinum category have confirmed their participation at the Bali Beyond and Travel Fair (BBTF) to be held on June 22-26, 2016.

"The number of platinum buyers will likely increase as the registration is still open," Chairman of the BBTF Organizing Committee Ketut Ardana stated here, Wednesday.

Platinum buyers are world-class travel bureaus that could send more than 10 thousand foreign tourists to Bali annually.

He said that 17 platinum buyers had taken part in the second BBTF in 2015.

For this year`s event, some 30 domestic and 110 foreign buyers from European, American and Asian countries have registered for the fair.

He invited Indonesian businessmen engaged in hotels, restaurants, and MICE (meeting, incentive, conference and exhibition) activities to take part in the fair and showcase their potential to the buyers.

The fair is expected to support the government to achieve the set target to attract 20 million tourists annually by 2019.

The BBTF is expected to expand the tourist markets in Southeast Asian countries in addition to other potential markets.

"We will continue to target the ASEAN market through the BBTF to promote Indonesia`s tourism," Ardana affirmed.

According to the BBTF chairman, this year, China, Australia, India, and the Middle East countries have been identified as some of the potential markets besides European countries and the United States.

In recent years, the number of tourists from Southeast Asian countries has increased.

The Bali Central Statistics Agency noted that during the January-November 2015 period, tourists from Singapore and Malaysia were among the top ten visitors to Bali.

During the same period, Malaysia came fourth, with 168,273 people visiting Bali. Meanwhile, Singapore was ranked seventh, with the number of visitors reaching 125,910.

Both countries contributed 8.1 percent, or 3,631,195 people, to the overall number of foreign tourists, up by 6.2 percent compared to that recorded in the same period last year.

The annual BBTF was held for the first time in June 2014. (WDY)