indonesia's travel bubble with four asia pacific countries

As the crisis of covid-19 is leading the world to the new normal, neighbor countries are now considering on reopening borders. Indonesia is also in discussion with China, Japan, Australia and South Korea on creating "travel bubbles".

Recently "Fast Lane" arrangement was announced by Singapore with China and Thailand was in consideration of opening tourism to corona free people and allow the quarantine-free flow of people between Bangkok and few cities in China, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam.

Teuku Faizasyah Spokesperson of Foreign Ministry stated that Indonesia has been closely observing the trend however the officials are still exploring ways to create such "travel corridor".

The term "travel bubble" or "Travel corridor" is a reference to an agreement which is made by the countries who have successfully contained an outbreak and can now reopen their borders together to allow free movements within the bubble.

“We are exploring what [foreign] countries are discussing over travel corridor arrangements, but in essence, we are now working on the principles the Indonesian government needs to have if we implement [a travel corridor],” Teuku said recently.

The Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister is in discussion with Foreign Ministry along with Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry with an official stating that they are specifically exploring options with China, South Korea, Australia and Japan to boost and recover Indonesia's tourism.

“The four countries were chosen because many tourists and foreign investors in Indonesia come from those countries,” the office’s undersecretary for tourism and creative economy, Odo Manuhutu, said on Friday.

He also said that regardless of the plan Business people will be given preference initially to travel to and from those countries in the near future.

“Hopefully, tourists will gradually follow and visit [Indonesia] after the investors," he said.

Gary Quinlan Australian Ambassador to Indonesia also shared that travel restriction caused by pandemic has greatly affected the comprehensive economic partnership agreement between Indonesia and Australia, a landmark trade deal that had been in negotiations for a decade.

After being ratified earlier this year, the agreement will take effect on July 5.

“We've already lost a tremendous amount of momentum in our economies because of our economic crises caused by the pandemic,” Quinlan said recently.

Even though businesspeople could work remotely during the pandemic, the travel restrictions remained a problem affecting the economic ties of the two neighbors, he added.

“I think certainly my own government realizes that when we move to lift travel restrictions […] we have with Indonesia, business travelers who need to do business to get our economies working should be a priority.”

He also shared that international students are the next priority as tourism would require more time to rebuild as visiting Indonesia is still of high interest to Australians.

Shinta Kamdani, Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) deputy chairwoman also shared the thoughts that business communities are excited and geared up for or the IA-CEPA trade deal through virtual meetings.

“But it is not possible to do virtual meetings all the time. We need to have policies on how we could move beyond virtual meetings and under what conditions. Probably, there would be exceptions [for essential businesses to freely and safely travel across borders],” she said.

As majority of the countries including Indonesia require a 14 day quarantine period for International arrivals which is too long for business trip according to Shinta.

Meutya Hafid, Lawmaker has called on the government to act swiftly so that Indonesia isn't left behind.

“The concept of doing business and [international] traveling will greatly change in the future, and Indonesia must conduct massive lobbying to ensure it is not left behind [in the global arena], especially in terms of people-to-people interactions,” she said.

Dicky Budiman, An Epidemiologist said that Indonesia is not up to the standards with other countries like China, Japan, Australia and South Korea in terms of Covid-19 management, let alone creating travel bubbles.

"The idea of travel bubbles, or COVID-19 corridors, is actually opening borders or entrances between countries that are equal in terms of pandemic control while having strong economic and tourism relations. There's a certain level of trust there," he said on Tuesday.

In the recent days, the daily infection rate for Indonesia have been increased to 1000 cases per day on an average. On Monday 1017 new cases were announced by the health ministry which brings the total number to 39,294.

"The government has to work extra hard to control the pandemic with massive and aggressive testing and tracing, as well as measures to isolate and treat [patients] so that economic recovery and reopening tourism are possible," he said.