SIA's Indonesian routes
We would like to thank you for the article SIA expects lower traffic on Indonesian route on page 12 of The Jakarta Post on Feb. 13, 2001. Allow me to make a few comments to balance the points made in the article.
Contrary to the title of the article, Singapore Airlines (SIA) is confident about its Indonesian routes. The size of our operations bears clear testimony to this. If we did not have confidence, we would not be operating more than 120 flights a week to Indonesia.
To counter the fall in attractiveness of Indonesia as a tourist destination, we have been working closely with the Department of Culture and Tourism and the tourism industry to work toward the revival of tourism into Indonesia.
Back in 1998-1999, during the height of the crisis, Singapore Airlines and its subsidiary Silk Air sponsored tour operators, hoteliers and tourism officials to attend the important overseas travel fairs (like ITB Berlin, World Travel Mart, PATA and the Millennium Travel Fair) to promote Indonesia. We also launched the Bali Spectacular, which attracted tourists to Indonesia at a time when the publicity coming out of Indonesia was particularly bad.
To further strengthen our commitment, we signed a Tourism Promotion agreement on March 23, 2000, with the then state minister of tourism and arts, aimed at developing and promoting Indonesian tourism, and restoring the image of Indonesia as a tourism destination in the eyes of the international world. The program makes available US$4 million over two years to enable tour operators and travel writers to come and see for themselves what tourism potential Indonesia has, and to assist the Indonesian tourism players to travel overseas to promote the country.
SIA makes available free and rebated travel, cargo discounts and excess baggage, and advertising and promotional materials to the amount of $3 million, while the Indonesian authorities contribute $1 million in the form of hotel accommodation and ground arrangements in Indonesia. At the same time, SIA also initiated a training program for travel agents, worth Rp 3 billion over three years, in partnership with ASITA, to raise the level of professionalism of the travel agents so as to be prepared for a challenging future. The initial result of both our tourism promotion and training efforts are encouraging.
The slight decline in our load factors on the Singapore- Jakarta route in the first two months is understandable, given the sharp peak we had in December, and the current news reports from Indonesia. We are confident though that traffic will return in the medium term, as the situation stabilizes. We intend to be here, and to offer the capacity that will be needed.
RAJA SEGRAN
General Manager Indonesia
Singapore Airlines
Jakarta