Government urged to attract more Chinese tourists

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)