Yogyakarta ready to host ATF 2023

SINGAPORE, 16 December 2022: The annual ASEAN Tourism Forum and TRAVEX will be held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, from 2 to 5 February 2023.

Billed as the region’s biggest and oldest B2B travel show, the ASEAN Tourism Forum is hosted alphabetically among the 10 ASEAN member countries.

For the travel industry, the two-day TRAVEX trade fare is the crucial component of the week-long rollout of government meetings leading off with the ASEAN Tourism Ministers summit. Closed-door meetings for ASEAN National Tourist Offices follow the summit. Airlines hold discussions on the sidelines, and hosted media programme brings in close to 100 journalists, bloggers and travel influencers. Around 1,000 delegates, travel buyers and sellers attend the event.

As part of the hosting agreement for the ATF, Yogyakarta’s provincial government funded the renovation of the Jogja Expo Centre, where the TRAVEX travel fair will be hosted. According to local media reports, the renovation will be completed by late December 2022.

Expectations are high, as voiced by the Yogyakarta Regional Tourism Promotion Agency, which sees ATF as a catalyst to revive Yogyakarta as a  leading cultural and heritage destination in Southeast Asia. It is also the first major travel event to be hosted in Indonesia after almost three years of Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions.

The annual event established in 1981 involves all the tourism industry sectors of the 10 member states of ASEAN: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The 2022 ATF was hosted by Cambodia.