JakartaPost-July 30
Even for well-traveled Indonesians, having a passport is just the first step toward traveling abroad. They still must take the time to apply for visas for a number of destinations, even for short visits. Muhammad Rizki Hadi Putra, 31, had planned to go on a six-day vacation to Sydney, Australia, with his wife in mid-August. He had prepared everything from buying plane tickets and making hotel reservations to applying for an Australian visitor visa online, which cost him some Rp 2 million (US$132.3). But his visa application was rejected. For Rizki, who is self-employed in the property business, the rejection came as a surprise because he had been to Europe, Japan, South Korea and several ASEAN countries for vacations and business trips since obtaining an Indonesian passport in 2014. “I was disappointed because it was the first time I applied for a tourist visa and got rejected because of insufficient funds. Perhaps I was suspected of intending to overstay,” Rizki told The Jakarta Post on Thursday. He said he lost around Rp 15 million in the process, as his plane tickets and hotel reservations were nonrefundable. The latest Henley Passport Index, released by British immigration consultancy Henley & Partners on July 18, found that Indonesians enjoyed visa-free entry to 70 countries and destinations. This put the country, along with Tunisia and Zambia, at 77th on the index, which ranks 199 countries based on the number of destinations its citizens can visit without a visa. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/indonesia/2023/07/30/indonesias-middle-strength-passport-remains-a-travel-barrier-for-some.html.
