Garuda Online Travel Fair eyes 3 million tourists

TRAVEL - Flag carrier Garuda Indonesia is holding the third phase of the Garuda Indonesia Online Travel Fair (GOTF) with a target of 700,000 foreign tourists and 2.3 million domestic tourists.

“We’re also holding the third phase of the GOTF at overseas offices of Indonesian representatives,” said Garuda’s marketing and IT director Nina Sulistyowati in Jakarta on Monday as reported by tempo.co.

With the fair, Garuda is looking to play its part in helping the government achieve the target of 20 million tourist arrivals in 2019, she said.

Nina said among the destinations that were being promoted through the fair were Belitung in Bangka Belitung, Denpasar in Bali, Yogyakarta, Labuan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara, Sorong in Papua and Manado in North Sulawesi.

Nina said the third phase of the GOTF was to mark the collaboration between Garuda and private lender HSBC Indonesia. She said Garuda wanted to optimize the bank’s wide global networks.

HSBC Indonesia head of customer value Dewi Tuegeh said her company would use its global networks through the Home and Away Program to promote the GOTF.

She added that the GOTF was also being promoted through its websites in Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Singapore and the UK for the bank’s customers in those countries. “Our customers in those countries will be able to access the GOTF to enjoy destinations in Indonesia,” she added.

The GOTF will run until Nov. 30. Business and first class tickets will be sold from Nov. 21 to 23, while all classes of tickets can be obtained from Nov. 24 to 30.