Beyond Bali and Batam: How new routes are changing Singapore’s ties with Indonesia

BELITUNG/PADANG/PONTIANAK – When Singaporean Zachary Lee, 36, was looking for a family holiday destination for an August 2026 trip, he had never even heard of Belitung before.“I don’t think I would have even known about this place if not for the announcement that there was this direct flight to a new island,” the callisthenics trainer told The Straits Times. He ended up spending seven nights in Belitung with a group of 12, made up of his family, his friends and their children.Singaporean Zachary Lee (right) with his family, his friends and their families on vacation in Belitung. ST PHOTO: HARIZ BAHARUDINNew direct routes to Indonesia are doing more than giving Singaporeans new places to holiday. By cutting out connecting flights, they allow people from Singapore and Indonesia to explore business opportunities, meet partners, study or simply discover places that previously took more time and money to reach.Singaporean purchasing manager Matthew Goh, 43, is among those who see the potential for travellers to explore less-visited parts of Indonesia as connectivity improves. Drawn by West Sumatra’s culture and scenery, he has already made three leisure trips there.“Indonesia is not just Batam, Bintan and Bali. There is more beauty and a more diverse culture within Indonesia itself,” he told ST. “Having direct flights to smaller places like Padang will actually open up this beauty.”Singaporean purchasing manager Matthew Goh‘s third holiday in West Sumatra included a trip to the scenic Tanah Datar regency, home to the Minangkabau ethnic group. ST PHOTO: ARLINA ARSHADThis growth is by no means an accident. At their Leaders’ Retreat in Jakarta on July 6, Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto called for more direct flights to support tourism, business and people-to-people ties.“We hope to see more flight connections to different parts of Indonesia. That will enable more tourists to experience the beauty of Indonesia, support business travel and facilitate more interactions between our people,” PM Wong said.Similarly, when international flights to Belitung resumed in May, Indonesian Economic Ministry spokesman Haryo Limanseto commented that it was “part of a broader strategy to accelerate regional economic growth, create jobs and expand the country’s sources of foreign exchange”.How direct flights make all the differenceOne surprise factor has helped put these cities within reach: smaller jet planes like Scoot’s Embraer E190-E2, which offers 112 seats, compared with 180 on the Airbus A320 family of jets typically used by other regional carriers.Scoot told ST this smaller capacity provides it with greater flexibility to match demand in emerging markets, allowing airlines to look beyond traditional leisure gateways.Other carriers flying between Singapore and Indonesia, including Garuda Indonesia, Batik Air, Citilink, TransNusa and Pelita Air, generally use larger Airbus A320s or aircraft in the Boeing 737 family for their Singapore services.With this strategy, Scoot now serves 17 destinations in Indonesia, making it the largest foreign airline by destination count. It has added six Indonesian routes since April 2025, including Belitung and Pontianak in 2026.Scoot launched its first direct flight to Padang – the capital city of West Sumatra that is also known as the birthplace of nasi padang – in January 2025. PHOTO: SCOOT/FACEBOOKMayur Patel, global travel data platform OAG’s commercial and industry affairs leader for Asia-Pacific, told ST that the new routes have allowed airlines to look beyond the biggest markets.“The market is not merely adding frequency to a handful of leisure gateways; it is broadening into a long tail of provincial cities that had no direct Singapore link at all,” he said.This shift is moving the relationship between Indonesia and travellers from Singapore beyond just the familiar hubs of Jakarta, Bali and Batam to reach the rest of the archipelago. It creates fresh, direct ways for people to connect, opening up destinations that were previously just too out of the way to visit.Belitung shows what can happen when that inconvenience disappears. The direct flight did not merely shorten the journey – it put the island on travellers’ radar.Indonesia’s Ministry of Tourism told ST on Aug 14 that the Singapore-Belitung flights are on average more than 93 per cent full, carrying about 915 passengers a month.“Eliminating transit friction has immediately unlocked latent demand,” ministry official Wiendyazkia Nur Ariffa said.A change of routine in the Sheraton Belitung Resort illustrates Belitung’s new-found popularity. Resort manager Muhammad Aminullah said he hardly needs a calendar now to tell when Wednesday or Sunday has rolled around.“We know when the Scoot flight has arrived,” he said with a laugh. “You see the Singapore guests coming in, and suddenly the hotel is much busier.”Aminullah, who has worked in Belitung for eight years, said the increase has been noticeable since the direct flights began. Singaporeans now regularly make up the bulk of the resort’s foreign guests. Some days, they even occupy more than half of the hotel’s 108 rooms.More Singapore travellers come for leisure than workHotels and tour agencies in other Indonesian cities visited by ST are also reporting more Singapore visitors, and a marked shift: More are coming for leisure than for business.Singaporeans made 1.53 million visits to Indonesia in 2025 and spent an average of US$624 (S$790) a visit, according to government agency Statistics Indonesia. However, national hotel data does not break down guests by nationality, making it difficult to track how much of the increase in hotel stays was driven specifically by Singapore visitors.Padang, the capital of West Sumatra, draws visitors for its famous food, including dishes such as nasi padang and rendang, and provides a jumping-off point for the region’s Minangkabau culture and highland scenery.Since January 2025, Singapore and Padang have again been linked by direct flights, seven years after the previous service was discontinued because of low demand. Scoot now flies the route several times a week and is its sole non-stop operator.Museum Adityawarman sits in a large garden in the heart of Padang. It is named after Adityawarman, a 14th-century ruler who held power in central Sumatra. The museum houses more than 6,000 objects, and its collections span archaeology, ethnography, manuscripts, ceramics and traditional art. ST PHOTO: ARLINA ARSHADChildren wearing traditional Minangkabau dress for a photo shoot ahead of Indonesia’s 81st Independence Day. Minangkabau ceremonial clothing varies by locality, age and occasion, with elaborate woven textiles, gold-coloured ornamentation and distinctive headdresses among its most recognisable features. ST PHOTO: ARLINA ARSHADAt Mercure Padang in the city, front-office manager Ridho Suwandi said the number of Singapore guests rose 38 per cent from 2024 to 2025, without disclosing the exact numbers.He said the hotel received fewer than 100 Singapore guests in 2024 and more than 100 in 2025. By July 2026, when ST met him, Singapore guest numbers had already matched those recorded over the same period in 2025.Spotting these leisure visitors is easy, he said. They typically arrive in groups of fewer than a dozen, spend a day in Padang before heading to Bukittinggi, about 90km to the north, and book their trips through Singapore travel companies working with local operators in West Sumatra.Food is a big part of these trips, with Singaporeans not only eating rendang there but packing it up to take home. “After sightseeing, they have to eat. If they do not, (that means) they are not happy,” Ridho said with a laugh.Hotel Mercure Padang’s front-office manager Ridho Suwandi and his colleague, digital marketing officer Hilda Octaviani Harsya, welcome more Singaporean guests these days. ST PHOTO: ARLINA ARSHADOver in West Kalimantan province, capital Pontianak is the third-largest city on the island of Borneo, with two main claims to fame: its position right on the Equator, and its bustling culinary scene.A similar trend to what has been seen at the Padang Mercure is noticeable at the Pontianak Mercure and its sister hotel, Ibis. In the first half of 2026, the Mercure and Ibis welcomed merely 30-odd Singaporean guests. But they have recorded 150 Singapore guests in just the two months since Scoot began flying directly to Pontianak three times a week at the end of June.“It’s about a 400 per cent rise in Ibis, and a 700 per cent rise in Mercure. So it’s been quite an amazing increase,” Stanley Bendah, the hotels’ cluster director of sales and marketing, told ST.Converting arrivals to local spendingRising arrival numbers may look impressive, but for Indonesia, one of the more consequential objectives would be to keep the cash registers ringing.At the Kiniko Coffee business in West Sumatra, promoter Nadifa has seen that spending first-hand.Some customers from Singapore buy as many as 10 packets at a time of kawa daun, a traditional West Sumatran drink made from coffee leaves, and they later order more online.Kawa daun is made by brewing dried or smoked coffee leaves in hot water. Dark in colour, it tastes more like tea than coffee, with a smoky, slightly bitter taste. ST PHOTO: ARLINA ARSHADKawa daun is traditionally served hot in half a coconut shell which sits on a bamboo holder, and can be drunk plain or with sugar. ST PHOTO: ARLINA ARSHAD“Singaporeans shop a lot,” Nadifa said. “They buy coffee, spices and snacks. And plenty of them.”Daniel Alexander Napitupulu, 38, director of the Tanjung Kelayang tourism special economic zone in Belitung, said Singaporeans now make up the largest group of foreign visitors to Belitung, although he did not provide a breakdown by nationality.Foreign visitor arrivals in Belitung jumped 71.2 per cent from 847 in April to 1,450 in May, the month Scoot began direct flights from Singapore, according to data from the Belitung tourism authorities.The numbers have stayed high and even climbed since then. There were 1,378 foreign visitors in June and 2,635 in July, more than three times the number recorded in April.For Daniel, “the mission to accomplish is to learn who the visitors are, how much they spend, what value they bring and the economic impact of these visitors”.“The very first (economic effect) is how directly the foreign currency will flow to our SMEs,” he told ST, referring to small and medium enterprises.He was heartened to hear local entrepreneurs say Singaporeans were spending on more than the usual tourist souvenirs. They were also buying locally made clothes and food products, including crackers, he said.“The business owners were surprised that Singaporeans actually also like to buy things,” Daniel observed, adding that revenues among some local businesses had increased.Small businesses could also benefit beyond tourism, for example, by using the new routes for their logistics needs.“The group most affected is small and medium enterprises. Large firms could always absorb the cost of a transit, but not smaller ones,” said Nitin Pangarkar of NUS Business School.Passenger aircraft can carry time-sensitive goods such as seafood, fresh produce and processed food more quickly to Singapore and other markets, he said. But making that work requires efficient cargo handling, Customs and cold-chain facilities.Singapore was Indonesia’s largest source of foreign investment in 2025, accounting for US$17.4 billion, or nearly a third of the total. Much of the investment remains concentrated in established markets, with Jakarta alone drawing 17.5 per cent of the total.New traffic goes both waysBesides the direct impact from the arrival of Singaporeans, the opening of new routes has other advantages. For example, more Indonesians can benefit by being able to travel more easily to Singapore, itself a regional travel hub.According to the Singapore Tourism Board, Indonesia was the Republic’s second-largest source of visitors in 2025, with 2.4 million arrivals.Stanley from Mercure and Ibis noted that despite the trend in his hotels, there are more passengers travelling from Pontianak to Singapore than the other way round.“From what we have heard from speaking to travel agents, the flights are still dominated more by passengers who are going from Pontianak to Singapore rather than the other way around,” he said.West Sumatra tour guide Reni Fira Mita, 34, said the new link will take her to Singapore for the first time in early December before she continues her journey to Malaysia.“I’ll fly into Singapore, spend half a day sightseeing and cross over (to Malaysia) to spend the night. Hotels in Singapore are more expensive than in Malaysia,” she said.Indonesian tour guide Reni Fira Mita plans to visit Merlion Park in Singapore before crossing the Causeway to Johor. ST PHOTO: ARLINA ARSHADSingapore’s position as one of Asia’s main international travel hubs also makes it easier for travellers from beyond Singapore to reach destinations in Indonesia.The direct Singapore-Pontianak flight was one reason the West Kalimantan capital was chosen to host the Polytron Indonesia Masters international badminton tournament in September, as the flight makes it easier for participating players from other parts of the world to reach the city. Otherwise, they might have had to transit through both Singapore and Jakarta.Not all the benefits of easier travel show up neatly in tourism statistics.Julia Lau, principal fellow and coordinator of the Indonesia Studies Programme at Singapore’s ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, told ST that the higher-education sector may also benefit.Education links between Singapore and Indonesia already extend beyond traditional university exchanges, she said. She pointed to how polytechnics in Singapore run learning programmes in Batam, owing to its proximity and easy ferry connections.Singapore universities have also established exchanges with major institutions in Java, including Universitas Indonesia and Gadjah Mada University, she noted.While there is not yet evidence of a broader shift towards institutions outside Java, better air links could make exchanges with more distant parts of the archipelago easier. This could potentially bring in “more diversity and representation from more parts of Indonesia”, she said.Opening routes is the easy partSuccessfully launching new air routes requires careful navigation of the distinct hurdles facing each individual destination.Pontianak, for example, is a gateway to the vast forests and rivers of Borneo, including the Kapuas, Indonesia’s longest river.But many of West Kalimantan’s natural attractions lie deep in the interior, where journeys can involve hours travelling by road and river.That leaves Pontianak itself with a different challenge: giving travellers a reason to stay, rather than simply pass through.Pontianak is the primary entry point for tourists exploring West Kalimantan on Borneo island.“We don’t have beaches, or hills, or waterfalls,” local tourism chief Rizal, who goes by one name, said. “But we have a great culinary scene and a unique culture. We just need to develop and package it correctly.”The opportunity is not limited to attracting holidaymakers.“Pontianak does not only offer leisure – there are oil palm plantations, mines and so on,” said Haposan Maruli Parjuangan, of the city’s Mercure and Ibis hotels.“Some of our Singaporean guests at Ibis have come here for business. We hope that this can increase with the direct flights.”Meanwhile, in West Sumatra, 40-year-old Habibie, who goes by one name, set up private tour company Sumatra Bagus in 2023 and has gone after the Singapore market himself.Singaporeans now account for about 40 per cent of his customers, typically travelling in small groups for nature, photography and cultural experiences. In March, he flew to Singapore on his own to seek travel agency partners, “because it is nearby, and Singapore is a good market for West Sumatra”.Habibie owns tour company Sumatra Bagus, which aims to take travellers beyond Sumatra’s usual tourist stops and connect them with local communities, traditions and landscapes. ST PHOTO: ARLINA ARSHADBut the direct flight has yet to bring a significant increase in visitors.“It has not been significant yet, perhaps because there are still too few flights,” Habibie said. “The direct flight is only twice a week, and that is not enough.”Where demand does take off, airlines can add capacity. Scoot said strong demand for its Singapore-Labuan Bajo service prompted it to double flights from twice to four times weekly from August.The airline said it regularly reviews existing routes based on demand, while decisions on new services also take into account their market potential and how they fit into the wider SIA Group network.There is also no guarantee every new route will last. Smaller routes need enough passengers going both ways, while destinations need to give tourists and businesses reasons to keep coming back.The flights, after all, solve only one problem: getting there.“Deeper ties can only come with repeated interaction and to-and-fro traffic,” Lau said.That deeper tie-building takes on added weight as Singapore and Indonesia prepare to mark 60 years of diplomatic relations in 2027. After decades, more of Indonesia is now within easier reach of Singapore than ever.The flights have shortened the journey. Now comes the harder part – making the connections count.Additional credits: Karina Tehusijarana, Chong Jun Liang, ST Digital Graphics, CMG, EPA, iStockProduced by: Chang May Choon, Zurairi A.R, Stephanie Yeow, Adele Ong, Philip Cheong