The presence of many familiar international brands – from M&S, Tesco, Debenhams, H&M and the Body Shop to Armani, Bose, Ralph Lauren, Nike and Tag Heuer – attest to investor confidence in consumer demand in the city. There are more malls in Jakarta than any other city in the world. Whereas in Europe we might go to parks, the mindset here is that you go to air-conditioned malls, which tempt with hundreds of attractions. Some of the have waterparks, and some have cinemas with beds in them and huge karaoke centres.
There are currently ten million visitors to Indonesia a year, but the government aims to double this to 20 million by 2020. That is why, an express rail link to downtown is coming this year and a third runway is currently being developed at the airport. By next year the hub will be able to handle 62 million passengers annually.
Interestingly, the Indonesians are great social media aficionado. The country is the fourth-biggest Facebook market on the planet, while Jakarta has been dubbed the Earth’s “Twitter capital”. With 60 per cent of the population under the age of 30, you can understand why. Enjoy your reading!
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