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