Jakarta tourism agency head Cucu Ahmad Kurnia said on Monday that the agency would issue a regulation allowing MICE events to be held at 50 percent capacity. The Tourism Ministry called for the suspension of MICE events in March to contain the spread of COVID-19.

“Hopefully in the next day or two we will issue a letter to allow MICE events at 50 percent capacity. We will also allow outdoor corporate events and golf tournaments to be held in Jakarta,” he said during a webinar held by marketing consulting firm Markplus.

The agency’s decision to allow such mass events comes after the city government’s decision on July 1 to extend transitional COVID-19 restrictions for another 14 days. Jakarta had recorded 12,857 cases as of Tuesday, with 190 new confirmed cases, making it the second-highest contributor to the nation’s total.

Cucu said that Jakarta had lost trillions of rupiah in tax revenue from the tourism industry as businesses had been shut down since large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) began in March.

Tourism has been severely affected by the ongoing health crisis. Indonesia recorded 163,646 foreign tourist arrivals in May, down by 86.9 percent from the 1.24 million visitors welcomed in the same period last year, according to Statistics Indonesia (BPS).

Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport saw an almost complete disappearance of foreign arrivals in May of this year, BPS data showed.

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