APEC and tourism

APEC and tourism

From Media Indonesia

The APEC meeting is now a thing of the past. Included in the
18 heads of state/governments present at the meeting were the
President of the United States, Japan's Prime Minister, South
Korea's President and Australia's Prime Minister. A meeting of
such magnitude was surely watched by TV viewers throughout the
world.

Up to now, many foreigners do not know Indonesia well. Many
know Bali, but they do not know Bali is part of Indonesia. I
would like to suggest now that the APEC meeting has ended,
promotion of tourism should be intensified by distributing
brochures to travel agencies in the world -- America, Europe and
other strategic countries.

When I was abroad it was easy to find brochures of different
countries in the travel agencies, but none about Indonesia. It is
our common hope that the number of foreign tourists will increase
following the APEC meeting.

Just imagine, not less than 45 million tourists visit Spain
every year. In fact Indonesia is a potential tourist destination,
not unlike Spain. Yet Indonesia has only five million tourists a
year.

F. PUDYANTO SURADIBROTO

Jakarta