Government urged to attract more Chinese tourists

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia should attempt to lure more tourists from China in an effort to help revive the tourism industry which has been badly hit by the recent political upheavals and the economic crisis, according to a former tourism official.

Andi Mappisameng, former director general of tourism, said over the weekend that some six million tourists from China traveled overseas every year.

"Indonesia should boost its efforts to increase tourist arrivals from China," he told the media at the weekend.

He said that the procedure to obtain entry visas should be made more efficient and much cheaper.

Various sources have said that to obtain an entry visa, tourists from China are charged at the same as for several days' visit in Thailand.

The appointment of tourist and travel agencies for the China market should also be reviewed as they might be partly to blame for the high cost, Andi added.

He explained that Indonesia should not be worried about the possibility that the Chinese visitors would stay permanently in the country because they came from a very different background.

"Tourists from China come from the established middle class who really want to enjoy overseas vacations," he said, adding that Indonesia had fallen behind its Southeast Asian neighbors in tapping into China's vast tourist potential.

He pointed out that Singapore attracted an average of 350,000 Chinese tourists each year, Malaysia 300,000, and Thailand 400,000, while Indonesia only managed to get 12,000 last year.

Andi was optimistic the target to increase the Chinese tourist arrivals by more than 10 percent every year could be reached despite the recent May rioting which witnessed widespread looting and burning of Chinese-Indonesian properties and the rape of women from the ethnic group.

"We are making promotions in Singapore and Malaysia," he said.

Indonesia's tourist sector had been badly hit by the rioting in the capital and other cities and the economic crisis that has plagued the country and the whole of Southeast Asia.

Tourist arrivals during the first semester of 1998 were only 1.57 million compared to 2.02 million in the same period last year. The poor performance has left the market doubting whether the country will achieve the year-end target of 4.6 million arrivals spending US$5.75 billion.

Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Marzuki Usman separately said at the weekend that the tourism sector had started to regain strength as indicated from the high occupancy rate of hotels in Bali, Indonesia's favorite tourist destination.

He expressed confidence that the tourism sector could spearhead the recovery of the country's crisis-hit economy in the short term. (rei)