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)