Visa on board :Simplifying Visits to Bali

There is good news for tourists who want to visit Bali inthe year 2010, especially tourists from Japan – the implementation of a Visa on Board (VoB) service that will eliminate the need for travelers to line up for hours for the submission of Visa on Arrival (VoA) when arriving in Bali. “This is a breakthrough in the management of VoA to provide better service for foreign tourists,” said Minister of Culture and Tourism Jero Wacik, while marking the start of VoB services on a Garuda Indonesia Tokyo-Denpasar-Jakarta flight.

The VoB system, which will take effect on February 1, 2010, is a document management service for the provision of immigration visas on arrival that is carried out by immigration officers. To obtain this VoB service, foreign passengers (Japanese citizens) are required to buy a visa on arrival in advance at the Garuda Indonesia check-in counter at Narita Airport (Tokyo).

The examination and provision of VoA passports will be processed aboard (in-flight) by special immigration officers who fly with passengers. After the passengers obtain a VoA, officers will also provide a special card for passengers holding the VoB. This VOB service was previously tested on December 21, 2009 on a Garuda Indonesia flight of the same route. It represents a breakthrough in the efforts to ttract more foreign tourists to Indonesia in 2010; currently, a target of 7 million foreign tourists has been set.

This program denotes a very real effort to resolve one of the major complaints from tourists. “They are tired from the long flight, and on arrival in Bali they have to queue again to submit their VoA. Therefore, we tried to find a better solution,” said Jero Wacik a at welcoming session last Monday (Feb 1) at Ngurah Rai Airport. The Minister of Culture and Tourism confirmed that his party would keep on evaluating the VoB services on Garuda Indonesia from Narita to Ngurah Rai. This year, VoB services will be expanded to other Japanese airports such as Nagoya and Osaka. It is expected that the same service could also be applied later on to other routes for the convenience of foreign tourists visiting Indonesia. “The VoB service is going to be extended to the arrival of tourists from countries such as Australia, China and South Korea,” said Jero Wacik.

Meanwhile, two tourists flying with Garuda Indonesia, Ms. May and Ms. Saila, expressed their happiness with the VoB service. “We are happy and helped by this service that released us from a long queue at the airport for VoA,” they said. Even those tourists from Japan who were visiting Bali for the fifth time were more excited about coming to Bali with the addition of this new service.

TO GO BALI