Spotting tourism police as tricky as finding Wally

Evi Mariani, Jakarta

How could one tell a tourism police from police in general?

"I could," said Novi of Semarang, Central Java, who was on visit to the Jakarta Fair in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, on Sunday.

"I have seen tourism police in my hometown, so I know they wear red tie and have red adornment on the uniforms. But no, I did not see one here."

Novi said she also did not see any tourism police when she visited the Indonesian Miniature Park (TMII) in East Jakarta on Saturday.

It was not that none of the police were there, but to find them around the huge Jakarta Fair compound was as difficult as finding the red-and-white-stripes suit Wally in the children game "Where's Wally?".

According to the special unit top man Adj. Sr. Comr. Edhy Moestofa, the whole 63-strong unit were deployed at the Jakarta Fair everyday for about 14 hours.

"The small number of personnel in the unit has long been a problem," he said, adding that it's impossible for him to deploy one officer at every of 90 starred hotels in the capital.

"Actually, recent calculation suggested that for Jakarta, we need at least 260 tourism police officers," he told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.

Aside from the annual Jakarta Fair, the police take routine patrolling at several tourism destinations such as TMII, the National Monument (Monas) park, Ragunan Zoo, Ancol, Old City Batavia area including the Sunda Kelapa port in North Jakarta.

Edhy said some travel and tourism agencies often contacted them for help. "They sometimes tell us there will be, for example, dozens of tourists from Japan, and they need tourism police to assist them."

The unit got its operations financed by the City Tourism Agency, but the fund was not enough to expand the unit's size.

To top the problems off, there was no policy either from the city administration and the National Police to add the personnel of the tourism police, Edhy said.

But, is tourism police really needed in the metropolis?

"Yes," chairwoman of Indonesian Hotels and Restaurants Association (PHRI) Yanti Sukamdani said. "Jakarta is a city that offers services to the residents as well as to the visitors. We have to bear in mind that the second largest contributor to Jakarta's revenue is tax from hotels and restaurants."

Therefore, she said, if the city administration wanted Jakarta to be a good service city, the existence of tourism police was needed.

"The personnel of tourism police are different from other police force. First, they have to be able to speak basic English, at least to give direction," she told the Post. "They also have to have enough knowledge about tourism spots in Jakarta."

Edhy said that his personnel indeed had better language skill than other police officers.

"Not just English language, sometimes we need officers who speak well native languages like Javanese, Sundanese or Batak, to serve the domestic tourists," he said.

He added that the Jakarta Police and City Tourism Agency also trained the officers to know how to read maps and to direct people to tourism spots like traditional markets or even night live spots.

"The officers should pass psychological test, because this unit needs officers who have stable temper," he said. "Jakarta needs tourism police to give the image of safe and welcoming Jakarta," he added.