The Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno, has revealed that the number of domestic tourist trips in Indonesia from January to June 2023 has reached a total of 433 million trips.

"As of June 30th, we have reached over 433 million trips, but the target for this year is 1.2 to 1.4 billion trips," Sandiaga stated during The Weekly Brief event in Jakarta on Monday.

Sandiaga highlighted that the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy aims to achieve around 766 to 966 million trips to meet the target number of domestic tourist trips for the year 2023.

He further explained that the ministry is coordinating with the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) to make adjustments through modifications to the Mobile Positioning Data (MPD) algorithm for domestic tourists.

According to him, the peak travel season and movement of travelers in Indonesia occur during the Idul Fitri holiday in April, the school holidays in July, and the year-end holidays in December.

"We only have one more opportunity to increase domestic tourism, which is during the year-end holidays or Christmas and New Year (Nataru)," he mentioned.

Sandiaga also emphasized that the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy is encouraging all stakeholders to organize Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE) events to boost domestic tourist movement.

MICE is an integral part of the tourism industry as it utilizes almost all tourism infrastructure in its organization.

Additionally, it aims to stimulate events in regions by promoting tourist destinations through the Karisma Event Nusantara (KEN) program.

KEN represents a collaborative strategy between the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, local governments, and all stakeholders in the tourism industry to enhance Indonesia's tourism image and drive the revival of the tourism and creative economy sectors.

He expressed hope that KEN 2023 can invigorate the economy by hosting quality events in regions, thus contributing to the continuous growth of Indonesia's economy and tourism sector.

"To the local governments, let's utilize all capabilities to create quality events in collaboration with communities, one of which is through KEN," he concluded.