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In order to achieve a targeted seven million foreign tourists
under this year's Visit Indonesia Year program, the government should
intensify cooperations with players in the tourism industry and grab
new potential markets, observers said.
Yanti Sukamdani, head of the Indonesian Hotels and Restaurants
Association (PHRI), said the government should not work alone in making
Visit Indonesia Year a success, as there were still many obstacles to
be tackled.
"A limited budget for instance, is still a problem and it will somehow
affect the promotion efforts, especially abroad," she told The Jakarta
Post Tuesday.
"But this can be tackled by improving cooperation with players in the
tourism sector."
The government has allocated US$15 million to finance the overseas
campaign of the visit Indonesia program, under which the country
expects to lure at least seven million foreign tourists.
Meity Robot of the Indonesian Tourism Society said in addition to
helping finance the campaign, cooperation with actors in the tourism
industry would also help the government understand the tourists'
preferences.
"The government should know tourism destination preferences so the
campaign can effectively reach its set targets," Meity said.
The government said it expects the visit Indonesia program would at the
very least attract six million tourists and should raise up to $6.4
billion in foreign exchange revenue.
Association of Tours and Travel head Ben Sukma told the Post the
government's optimistic target of seven million was unlikely to be
realized because markets had not been well analyzed.
"The government has to work very hard in analyzing the markets through
exploring and packaging the uniqueness of programs in every
destination, so that it can attract tourists with different
characteristics from different regions," Ben said.
For 2007, the government targeted 5.5 million foreign tourists, lower
than the original target of 6 million tourists.
From January to November last year, the Central Statistic
Agency (BPS) revealed Wednesday 4.11 million foreign tourists have
arrived through Indonesia's 15 main entry gates.
BPS said these figures were up by 13.67 percent, from 3.62 million
during the same period of 2006.
Although foreign tourist arrivals in 2007 were lower than predicted,
Yanti said the government could reach the minimum target this year if
it made extra efforts.
Yanti said these efforts should include campaigning to seek new markets.
"Besides countries in Southeast Asia and Australia, the government, for
example, should start campaigning in Middle Eastern countries, Russia
and India," she said.
"To do this, the government should eagerly cooperate with the embassies
and players in tourism in those countries.".
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