It’s easy to take this place for granted and forget that it is the world’s fourth most populous country (240 million) and it is South-east Asia’s largest economy – a trillion-dollar economy growing at 6% a year.

With its parliamentary elections just over, the country is on track to grow further. Consider that in just 15 years, it’s gone from being the world’s 27th largest economy in 2000 (nominal GDP) to the 16th largest today.

It is forecast to have the world’s seventh largest economy by 2030, surpassing the U.K. and Germany according to a report by McKinsey Global Institute, and the fourth largest in 2040 according to a Citibank report, trailing only China, India and the United States. (For what it means for the region, read this article.)

With travel and tourism’s fortunes linked to that of the overall economy, Indonesia’s travel market is also set to soar. In 2012, visitor arrivals reached just over 8 million and the target is 10 million this year, a goal well within each if arrivals for the first few months are any indication – January-March numbers show a 10% growth over the same period last year.

What’s most interesting about Indonesia – just like the Middle East – is how young the population is.

In 2011, Indonesia’s total median age was 28.2 years – this means half the population is under this age. And it’s the young that form the bulk of Internet users – 58.4% of the 61 million Internet users are 12-34 years old.

In the Middle East, 60% of the population in the region is under 30. As Abdul Wahab Teffaha, secretary general of the Arab Air Carriers Organisation said, when he spoke at WIT Middle East,  “This is a population that can change its habits overnight.”

It also goes without saying that it’s this generation that is most tech-savvy, using both social and mobile like they were born into it, which they are.

As with the Middle East, Indonesia’s travel industry is still dominated by large traditional incumbents – you could argue the hold in Indonesia is much stronger – but there are new players coming into the market, hoping to cater to the next generation of travellers looking for new ways of searching, planning and booking.

Indonesia’s start-up scene is ahead of the curve – it’s been interesting to see the mushrooming of travel start-ups in the last 12 months. There’s a natural entrepreneurial bent among Indonesians – young people don’t come out into the job market and find jobs automatically in large corporations like they do in Singapore, so they have to create their own jobs.

This year, we will have five finalists – BellHop, Insanwisata, Logbook, Openstrip and TripTrus – taking part in our WIT Start-Up Pitch. The platform is really to encourage entrepreneurs to have their ideas heard in front of investors and industry experts. It builds confidence and takes courage, and it helps in the focusing of the core idea.

Last year’s winner in Indonesia was Lagisatu – picked by judges for its unique selling proposition – its HalalStars rating for hotel search. Since winning in Jakarta, its co-founders Faeez Fadhillah and Jurgen Gallistl, have been working hard to boost this USP by expanding its halal ratings scheme and launching a Middle East website. Faeez will be speaking at WIT Indonesia on what he’s learnt about the US$140 billion halal travel market.

Said Faeez, “Generally winning the competition helped us to define more our USPs and develop them further (like the listing of services and amenities). It also allowed us to present us and our product to a distinct group of judges who then became mentors for our start-up.

“The pitch and the comments gave us the self-confidence to move forward with our endeavour and ultimately, many of our successes later on were built on the pitching session of WIT Indonesia. I think one of the greatest things we got out of WIT is the relationship built with travel industry people which we would never have met at any other event.”

As with all WIT events, we’ve reached out to young talent and we launched the WIT Indonesia Challenge (left), with Wego Indonesia and Kreavi, the crowd-sourced design community, challenging designers to come up with an idea for “If I were promoting ndonesia to the world, my concept would be” …

Thank you Achmad Aljatiri (right), senior community and social product manager, Wego Indonesia (by the way, best selfie in the world), and Benny Fajarai of Kreavi, for spearheading this Challenge. 

We received 157 entries and I’ve just finished judging them. What a hotbed of ideas, creativity and enthusiasm Indonesia is. Going through their entries has reminded me of what an undiscovered treasure trove Indonesia is in terms of tourism gems and the raw talent of its people.

This is the well of talent we in Asia’s travel industry must tap into and nurture – Singapore’s struggling with a tight labour force at every level. Tech developers are hard to find and they are getting increasingly expensive, and this limited pool cannot support the ambitions Singapore has to grow its tech sector.

I understand Indonesia’s also having its challenges – shortage of quality and skilled talent – but there’s no lack of people to train and coach and it is our responsibility to do that for the greater good of Asia’s travel industry.

The winner will be announced on April 23 and will receive a cash prize of US$1,000 from Wego, as well as offers of internships, and the chance to present the idea at WIT Indonesia – and this is the biggest prize, I reckon – to be heard in front of industry leaders. This bolsters confidence like nothing I know.

The biggest reward for me was when a senior executive of a global brand based in Singapore said to me after attending our inaugural event last year, “You’ve really opened my eyes to the opportunity in Indonesia.” She’s returning.

So you can understand my excitement about WIT Indonesia, right? This is one heck of an exciting, dynamic market – the opportunities are immense, the challenges as well – but hey, no pain, no gain.

See programme here

Book here