Remember back in November when we told you that Indonesia was going to start waiving the visa fees for tourists from five countries (specifically China, South Korea, Russia, Japan and Australia) starting in 2015?
Well after being a bit slow to implement the policy at the start of the new year, the government finally implemented the free visas for tourists from Japan. Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Indroyono Soesilo said the visa fee waiver would also soon be extended to visitors from South Korea, Russia and China.
But what about tourists from Australia? Well it looks like they’ll have to keep paying for their tourists visas for the foreseeable future.
“For Australians, the visa on arrival is enough,” Indroyono said last week, as quoted by the Jakarta Post.
Indroyono would not give the reporters a specific reason for why Australia was excluded from the policy, but the Post’s article speculates that it is due to increased political tensions between Australia and Indonesia, especially over the upcoming executions of two of the Bali Nine drug smugglers, Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
But both Indroyono and Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Tedjo Edhy denied that Ozzie tourists were having to pay because of poor politics between their homeland and Indonesia. Tedjo told the Post, “We have already given them a visa on arrival, so let’s just leave it that way.”
Ross Taylor, head of the Indonesia Institute in Australia, told the West Australian that the move was “payback” for not giving Indonesians a break on expensive visa fees.
“Indonesia is miffed that their proposed goodwill gesture of providing visa-free holidays for the one million Australians travelling to Bali every year has not been reciprocated,” he said.
Taylor gave the example of an Australian family of four travelling to Bali paying about AUD$140 for visas on arrival, whereas a Balinese family wanting to holiday in Australia would have to pay AUD$520.
