Come visit us, if you really want to

Come visit us, if you really want to

Traveling exposes you to the good and the bad not only of the
place you travel to, but also helps you to see your town, city,
country, etc. in a different light.

Local schoolbooks always point out how beautiful Indonesia is,
with its lush rain forests (with the illegal logging and forest
fires, this just goes to show how outdated the books are, not to
mention the whole education system), bountiful natural resources
and smiling people.

Then how come tourism is not a major moneymaker? Sure, we have
Bali. But how about the rest of the 13,677 islands? Surely there
are other places in this vast country that merits our wanderlust?
I, for one, am easy to impress. Anywhere green or with ancient
buildings, a white beach with blue or, even better, turquoise
waters would be sufficient for me.

A lot of foreign destinations are overrated, but people still
go anyway. Why? Aside from the bourgeoisie notion of jetsetting
around the world, these places have a head-turning marketing
plan, with nifty brochures and glossy advertising campaigns fully
supported by their government.

Pretty pictures and eloquent text, all there to seduce you to
go to yet another beach, shopping center, zoo or what-have-you. I
once went to a must-see island that turned out to offer a view
of ... rocks.

And come on, no offense to Malaysians the world over, but what
does our neighbor have that we don't?

What has our government done to support and promote Indonesian
tourism? The occasional culture and dance missions abroad? If you
go to a so-called "Indonesian Night" held by a well-intended
Indonesian embassy, most likely you'll meet fellow Indonesians
and just a handful of the much needed foreigners.

Browse through leading international travel magazines and
nowhere in sight is a slight mention of Indonesia, aside from
Bali.

Go to a foreign travel agent and it's likely there will be no
packages on Indonesia. Backpackers around the world often skip
our country on their trips to Southeast Asia, but happily tread
along to Singapore and Malaysia.

I once did a little research on Indonesian tourism and called
the Indonesian Embassy in London. The operator made me an
appointment with a staff member from the embassy's information
section. During the interview, he admitted that the embassy no
longer had a special section dedicated to tourism ever since the
monetary crisis hit (the only one in Europe was in the
Netherlands).

He proceeded to hand me some uninspiring, poorly executed and
outdated booklets on travel in Indonesia. One booklet stood out,
however; was very comprehensive, written in a very clear manner
and separated by interests (adventure travel, family, etc.). It
actually gave the impression that there are millions of things to
do in Indonesia. Beaches, mountains, historic buildings, shopping
complexes; we have them all.

Well, about time. Flick on your satellite TV and you'll see
aggressive campaigns telling you to go to amazing Thailand, to
see and love Hong Kong, to experience Malaysia, the real Asia.

The Amazing Thailand tourism advertising campaign debuted in
1998, at the height of the Asian economic crisis. They helped
Thailand pull in 8.65 million tourists in 1999, some 370,000 more
than the target.

"The campaign was enormously successful," said Tourism
Authority of Thailand spokesman Kaneungnit Chotikakul.

Meanwhile, our country was quite content to rely on the excuse
of the crisis and make do with the sprinkling of Australian
surfers who travel to Bali a few times a year. And then the Bali
bombings happened.

The Bali bombings of 2002 have been said to devastate our
tourism industry. Why, because the whole country depended on Bali
and Bali alone when it comes to tourism? Nobody among the tourism
officials saw the irony in this?

If the travel warnings have led to a decrease in international
tourists, then we should be encouraging people to travel
domestically. After 9/11 hit the United States, the government
quickly launched a campaign to encourage people to travel. They
even said it's more patriotic to travel! And the sea of U.S.
travel magazines kept writing about great areas at home to travel
to.

Sure, some holidays are moved to give us longer weekends to
encourage us to travel, but did the government do anything else
aside from that? Did any of the local governments try to entice
us to go visit them with special promotions, glossy articles and
ad campaigns?

There is a lot of homework to be done here, including coming
up with more organized and aggressive promotions, locally and
internationally. Better infrastructure (better roads, better
transport options, etc.) along the way. And perhaps a special
force is needed to crack on down dubious travel agents, hotels,
airlines and individuals who take advantage of tourists.

So instead of squeezing money out of people who travel abroad
(fiscal fee, perhaps, thankfully, to be gone soon), just imagine
how much money the country can make out of a thriving travel
industry?

-- Krabbe K. Piting