Tourist officials meet in Surabaya
Tourist officials meet in Surabaya
JAKARTA (JP): Government officials and tourist industry executives of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will meet in Surabaya, East Java, from Jan. 6 to Jan. 12 in an annual forum to discuss cooperation in promotion and marketing.
The meeting, called the ASEAN Tourism Forum 1996, will feature 500 booths, half of which will be allocated to Indonesian participants and the other half to foreign representatives.
The millions-of-dollars event, organized by PT Setia Mice in cooperation with the Indonesian Tourism Promotion Board, will be 66 percent financed by private firms and 34 percent by the government.
Two other Indonesian cities, Jakarta and Bandung, West Java, hosted the ASEAN Tourist Forum in 1986 and 1991 respectively.
Activities at the January forum will include a travel mart and meetings of government officials and private sector executives who represent the ASEAN Hotel and Restaurant Association, the Federation of ASEAN Travel Agencies and scheduled airlines in the region.
Managing director of the Indonesian Tourism Promotion Board, Wuryastuti Sunario, said yesterday that the domestic tourist industry must still improve many aspects, including professionalism, services and quality, to compete with other ASEAN members.
In addition to Indonesia, the association also groups Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
"In offering room rates, for instance, sometimes hotels in Bali charge higher prices than their counterparts in Thailand," she said.
Indonesia targeted to attract some 4.5 million foreign visitors this year, bringing US$6.09 billion in foreign exchange. Some five million to 5.4 million tourists are expected to visit the country next year, giving the country additional revenue of US$6.91 billion.
In 1994, 4.01 million foreign tourists visited Indonesia, compared to over seven million visiting Malaysia, over seven million visiting Singapore and six million visiting Thailand.
Besides other ASEAN members, Indonesia's major competitors in tourism include Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the new markets of Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Sri Lanka and India.
Competitors' advantages in the area include contrasting cultures, superior infrastructure, better access and wider choices of resorts, Wuryastuti said.(icn)