Time to escape from domestic drudgery
Time to escape from domestic drudgery
By I. Christianto
JAKARTA (JP): The holiday season is coming around again and
it's time for travel agents to reap the benefit.
While the political and financial turmoil goes on, travel
agents are helping those in the country who are likely not
affected, but just stressed, by the prolonged crisis to spend
their holiday overseas.
The recent three-day Holiday Expo, an exhibition on tours and
travel held at the Jakarta Convention Center, proved that public
enthusiasm remains high for overseas tour packages. Many
participants at the exhibition said that they were satisfied with
business during the event.
Venezia Tan, operations manager of Smailing Tour, said that
the June-July period coinciding with school holidays was always
the best time for people to spend their holidays.
"Therefore many people are looking at tour packages. We had a
good response during the event, though business was not as we had
hoped," she said.
She said that for international outbound tours, many
Indonesians were fond of visiting Europe, the United States,
Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
"This year, many people are seeking tours to Europe and the
U.S. They prefer to take shorter tours as the holiday period this
year will not be as long as last year's. Many prefer to join 10
or 12-day tour packages."
She said that Indonesians preferred to visit the West Coast in
the U.S. as there were more attractions such as Disneyland, Sea
World and Universal Studios.
Western Europe, she said, was also popular for most
Indonesians as there were many interesting cities such as Paris,
Florence and Venice, London, Lucerne and Amsterdam.
An executive for outbound tours of Bayu Buana, Regina, said
that Indonesians might prefer to go to Europe rather than the
U.S. due to the procedure in getting visas.
"Many Indonesians learn that it is a bit difficult to get
visas to the U.S. This may be the reason they prefer to go to
other destinations, especially Europe," she said.
Europe is one of the most popular destinations for
international visitors in 2000. France, saw a record number of 75
million foreign visitors in 2000.
In 2000, France was far ahead of the United States, which
hosted 52.7 million foreign tourists in 2000, according to World
Tourism Organization figures, and Spain, which received 48.5
million visitors from abroad.
Nana, an executive for sales and marketing of Panorama Tours
and Travel, said that weather was also an important consideration
for visitors.
"Europe has better weather in June-July, that's why more
Indonesians are interested to go there. Interesting itineraries
are also an important factor," she said.
Anthony of outbound tour of Avia Tour said that Europe was
actually the preferred choice of most parents.
"In addition to the lower price, most parents prefer to go to
Europe due to its classical image," he said.
Generally, travel agents set a two-week tour to Europe at
around US$1,500 or $2,500.
Most Indonesians favored shorter tour packages to Europe of
around two weeks, because of the lower cost and the shorter
holiday period.
According to Venezia this year's holiday period would not be
as long as last year.
Christy from the sales office of Vaya Tour and Regina said
that different schools in Indonesia usually had different holiday
periods, causing most families, to take shorter tour packages.
Escape
Besides traveling to long distance destinations, certain
destinations in Asia were still favorites with certain people.
Repeat tourists usually want to go further, beyond Asia, to
Europe or the U.S. while first timers choose destinations closer
to Indonesia.
In Asia, there is a new attractive service -- luxury liner
cruises.
Elvi M. Irawan of Star Cruises said that her company, which
operates Star Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Line, saw significant
growth in passengers from Indonesia.
"This year we target some 30,000 passengers from Indonesia,"
she said, adding that some 23,000 people took the adventure last
year.
Star Cruises' route includes Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore,
along the Malacca Strait.
In spite of the financial crisis, the total number of
Indonesians traveling abroad has been stable in recent years, in
contrast with the number of foreign tourist arrivals in the
country.
Many Indonesians prepare their travel budget in U.S. dollars,
so they do not face any difficulties when they have to pay the
travel agents which calculate rates based on the greenback.
Christy said many people were stressed due to the prolonged
political deadlock and wanted to escape from the troubled
domestic scene.
"Travel agents are just facilitators to help them escape from
such stressful situations," she said.
Travel agents, in the meantime, continue to launch various
promotions to lure more people to go abroad, not only to Europe
but to other equally attractive destinations.
Panorama, for example, offers a tour to Singapore which
includes a show of the popular boy-band Westlife. Smailing offers
"buy two get one free" for a tour package to the U.S. West Coast.
Travel agents claim that such promotions have won a great
response from the public.