Minister of Culture and Tourism Jero Wacik officially announce Immigration on Board operation at international arrival of Ngurah Rai Airport on Monday (February 1) yesterday. With IoB operation hoped could reduce the queue at the counter of Visa on Arrival (VoA).

According to Jero Wacik, immigration management service and visa on board during flight is a new break through and welcoming well by the Japanese tourists. “The Japanese tourists said to me that when they have to take care of their immigration and visa at the international arrival terminal at least they had to spend two hours for that,” explained Jero Wacik.

Nowadays, IoB implementation itself is still limited to Garuda Indonesia flight from Narita Airport of Tokyo Japan into Ngurah Rai Airport in Bali. According to Jero Wacik if they receive positive respond from those foreign tourists then it is not possible for them to apply this kind of service into other destination.

“We wish for this IoB could be applied into other destination such as Korea,” said Wacik.

According to him, that kind of simple facilitation could increase the number of tourists visiting Bali. “If in 2009 there are merely 2.3 million tourists then this year we could wish for it break 2.5 million tourists,” he hope.
Meanwhile the director of Garuda Indonesia Commercial, Agus Priyatno explained technically IoB is kind of immigration document management service in term of Visa on Arrival giving during the flight with Garuda Indonesia.

To get this kind of service, foreign passenger (Japanese citizen) is asked to buy VoA payment voucher at Narita Tokyo Airport for 25 dollar per 30 days which can be extended for another 30 days.

Passport and VoA will be processed during flight by two special immigration officers who participated in the flight. IoB holder will be given VoA and special card that will be delivered by the airport officers at the airport make them no need to queue again,” explained Agus.

Agus added after flight from Tokyo to Denpasar, according to the plan, IoB also will be operated in Garuda Indonesia flight of Osaka – Denpasar, Nagoya – Denpasar. After that, other flights will follow as it is for Korea, China and Australia. Head of Bali Tourism Agency, Ida Bagus Kadek Subhiksu stated that what the government conducted is part of their effort in raising number of tourists visiting Bali.

“We wish for additional number from our several main markets in Bali such as Australia, China, Korea are our potential market,” he said. According to him, the implementation of that IoB will simplify the tourists entering Bali.

“The most important thing that half of the queue can be solved. If other countries will be given the same facility then 50 percent of them should not have to queue,” he confessed. He also said that the amount of Australian visiting Bali during 2009 reached 20 percent from its total visiting followed by Japan with 14 percent visiting, 9 percent from China and Korea with 6 percent visiting. Meanwhile for Malaysia was at the fourth rank after China but special for this country, they become a country that received free visa facility with short term visiting.

News by NusaBali