Despite being replaced as a capital, Jakarta is still booming

You don’t need to see statistics to know that Australians love travelling to Indonesia. This summer it seems like every other person and then some are off to Bali. Even so, the stats do back this perception.

The Australian Travel Industry Association’s (ATIA) December Travel Trends report, using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, shows Indonesia is the top destination for Australians in terms of total travellers, up 26 per cent on the previous year, with more than 1.6 million Aussies visiting our close northern neighbour.

The 25hours Oddbird in central Jakarta.

ATIA informally estimates that about 95 per cent of that is travel to Bali, but there’s no denying interest is on the rise for other spots in the vast and varied Indonesian archipelago – Sumba, Rajah Umpat, Flores and others are piquing the interest of the more adventurous.

In many instances, Jakarta remains the gateway through which we will access these regions. And Jakarta itself is seeing interesting times – again.

Dating back to the 5th century, called Batavia during Dutch rule and renamed Jakarta when independence was gained in 1949, this mega-city on the island of Java that’s seen extraordinary growth in modern times has just been unseated as the capital.

In August 2024, the then Indonesian President Joko Widodo inaugurated his contentious, multi-billion-dollar new administrative city, Nusantara, on the island of Borneo. While it’s still under construction and a long way off both budgetary and timeline targets, the new government, elected in October, says it remains committed to this astonishingly ambitious project.

However, Jakarta is not about to fade away.

By 2050, the city’s economy will be almost three times as large as it is today, with the population of Jakarta province and its satellite cities reaching more than 40 million, “vastly dwarfing the projected population of the new capital”, Oxford University’s Asia Cities and Regional Forecasts Service says. Oxford economists also say Jakarta has the fastest growing IT sector of the major cities in South-East Asia and the Asia-Pacific.

That’s despite it being subject to severe sinkage due to environmental mismanagement. A significant part of the city’s north is likely to be under water by 2050.

But Jakarta’s busy international airport remains the main hub for the archipelagic nation, and while Jakarta’s ecological disaster presents many conundrums and challenges for visitors, there’s no denying this city is intriguing and worth a stop of a couple of days.

The bar at the Oddbird.

25hours Hotel The Oddbird is one of Jakarta’s new hotels, just opened in Jakarta’s Sudirman Central Business District, a glittering, modern office and luxury shopping enclave.

The 38-storey property, offering 210 rooms, takes eclectic design to the maximalist max, reflecting the DNA of the 25hours brand. Founded in 2001 and part of Ennismore (a joint venture with Accor), it has 16 properties around the world designed quirkily for creatives and the creative-at-heart. (Sydney gets a 25Hours hotel this year too, at 1 Oxford Street in Paddington.)

And if the hustle and bustle of Jakarta gets too much, you can retreat to the ninth floor spa where ice baths, oxygen therapy, infrared sauna, and even (despite the worldwide shortage of IV fluids) IV drip treatments are on the menu next to massages, facials and meditation classes.

On the eighth floor, COPA is the hotel’s signature restaurant, offering Latin American cuisine with wood-infused charcoal grill dishes, while the Cabana, a venue by the infinity pool, serves plant-based snacks and cocktails.

See 25hours-hotels.com