Tourist industry offers discointed travel packages

Tourist industry offers discointed travel packages

JAKARTA (JP): The country's tourist industry is offering
discounted travel packages through next month to foreign visitors
in a continuing effort to turn around declining arrivals.

The offer is part of the industry's campaign during the period
dubbed Magic Month -- beginning Aug. 10 and lasting through Sept.
24 -- to restore the battered tourist sector.

It covers 10 main tourist destinations nationwide of West
Java, East Java, Central Java/Yogyakarta, Bali, Lombok, North
Sulawesi, Batam, Bintan, North Sumatra and Jakarta.

"These packages sell for at least 30 percent of their normal
prices," the chairman of the Indonesian Hotels and Restaurants
Associations (PHRI), Pontjo Sutowo, told a media conference
yesterday.

Pontjo said the tourist industry wanted to show the world that
Indonesia still had much to offer.

"Lower number of tourist arrivals does not mean that our
appeal has faded as well," he said.

"Tourism is still good, even better now that the rupiah has
depreciated," he said. The rupiah has sunk by 80 percent of its
value from the middle of last year against the U.S. dollar."

Offers range from a three-day shopping package tour in Jakarta
starting at US$35 per night, a tour package in Central Java and
Yogyakarta at $39 per night, to a four-day adventure package in
Sulawesi at $364.50 per person.

At least 110 hotels ranging from three to five stars in
Jakarta, West Java, Yogyakarta, Central Java, East Java, North
Sulawesi, North Sumatra and Bintan are participating in the
program.

Project manager Alistair Speirs said Bali and Lombok had yet
to announce their package offers as they were still coordinating
on what they would entail. They will be announced next week, he
said.

"Bali has too many hotels and tourist sites, and is too big
and complicated to complete now," Alistair said.

National flag carrier Garuda gives a 40 percent discount on
the published fares for international and domestic airfares
quoted in foreign currency. Tickets must be bought at the point
of origins of the international visitors.

Only foreign tourists are entitled to the packages, excluding
expatriates with temporary residence permits.

The Magic Month is the second phase of the "Let's Go
Indonesia" program, a marketing and public relations campaign
designed to repair the tainted image of the country since
widespread rioting erupted in May.

The program kicked off with the Happy Day when foreign
tourists arriving on July 30 were awarded with packages of free
room and board and domestic flight tickets on Garuda.

Pontjo said the Magic Month might be extended to two or three
months, depending on the future situation.

He said the packages were being widely publicized through the
media and Internet websites, and via the networks of
international hotel chains, Indonesian embassies and Garuda's
foreign office branches.

Garuda's routes include London, Amsterdam, Paris, Jeddah,
Riyadh, Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur
and most of Australia's and New Zealand's main cities.

Pontjo said the Happy Day program garnered a positive response
from the international community.

"It shows that there are still tourist activities here despite
all that happened," Pontjo said.

After the May riots, which contributed to the resignation of
President Soeharto, tourist arrivals declined sharply and several
countries issued travel warnings to their citizens.

Before the unrest, Indonesia's tourist industry suffered
shrinking cash flows, provoked by natural, economic and political
turmoil since last year. (das)