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ASEAN citizens will get hotel discounts in Indonesia

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism plans to intensify its promotional campaigns targeting the Southeast Asian market, including a special ASEAN discount program

The Jakarta Post
JAKARTA
Sat, February 21, 2009

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ASEAN citizens will get hotel discounts in Indonesia

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism plans to intensify its promotional campaigns targeting the Southeast Asian market, including a special ASEAN discount program.

“The details on the program will be discussed at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Bangkok, Thailand, in March,” the ministry’s marketing directorate general Sapta Nirwandar said on Friday.

“One of proposed programs is to have hotel discounts effective among ASEAN nations. This means if tourists can prove they are citizens of an ASEAN nation, they will automatically get a special discount,” he added.

Sapta said that the hotel discount program had not yet been officially agreed by the ASEAN nations. “But the Indonesian and Malaysian governments have planned to try the program on a voluntary basis.”

Sapta said that the ASEAN market could play a key role in maintaining the Indonesian tourism industry while the global economic crisis is hitting Western countries so badly.

Around 6 million tourists came into the country in 2008, bringing in around US$7.5 billion in foreign exchange income.

Indonesia managed to record the highest increase in tourism  in the ASEAN region from 2007 to 2008, with a volume growth of around 15.25 percent. However, the ministry has not set a higher target for 2009, due to the global downturn.

As for this year’s income target, Sapta said that the ministry forecasts around $6.5 billion of foreign exchange from the tourism industry.

But while the ministry has set a lower income target, it increased the promotional budget to $24 million in 2009 from $22 million last year.

Sapta said that the ministry would allocate the budget more to niche markets rather than to global advertising,  since Indonesia’s tourism budget is very small compared to those of neighboring countries like Malaysia, which spent around US$100 million in 2008.

“That is why we cannot afford a mass promotion such as airing advertisements on international television networks. It costs around Rp 75 million just for a 30 second ad-spot,” Sapta said.

The ministry has scheduled several niche-specific events in West Sumatra, such as bicycle riding  in Singkarak and an old locomotive tour project in Padang Panjang. “We also plan to develop tourism in Lombok and Sumbawa. Currently, only around 130,000 tourists visit these areas annually. We plan to increase this by 1 million visitors in 2012,” Sapta said. (hdt)

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