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lack of infrastructure and promotion remain a great challenge in boosting Indonesia’s meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) industry, a trade group said on Thursday.

PATA Indonesia chairman S.D. Darmono said that Indonesia’s best convention centers, such as the
Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) and the Jakarta International Expo (JIExpo), were old and the number of hotels and restaurants were not enough to accommodate business visitors.

To compete with Singapore and Malaysia, he said that Indonesia should build new world-class convention centers, hotels, restaurants and public rest rooms outside Java and Bali to attract more international visitors.

“Indonesia is a vast country and the MICE industry should not depend solely on Jakarta and Bali. Eastern Indonesia, such as Morotai in Halmahera, is an attractive destination and we are building the infrastructure there ahead of 2012 Sail Morotai,” he told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the 4th MICE Outlook.

Problems with infrastructure has put Indonesia in 39th place for holding 64 international meetings while Singapore and Malaysia ranked 25th and 29th for holding 136 and 119 meetings, respectively, based on data from the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) in 2010, he said.

He added that the data also showed that Jakarta ranked 113th with 16 meetings while Bali stood in 67th place with 27 meetings.

He said that if Indonesia could not create world-class infrastructure and accommodations, it would be hard for the country to bid to host international MICE events.

Attracting top-level international events also required enormous promotion, Darmono said.

Tourism and Creative Industry Ministry data show that Indonesia spent US$24 million on marketing and promotion activities in 2010 and attracted seven million foreign tourists. Meanwhile, Singapore and Malaysia spent $278 million and $300 million respectively to lure more than 20 million tourists each.

Darmono added that the “Wonderful Indonesia” tagline was not catchy and the government should consider “Indonesia, the Lost Atlantis” as it would make people curious.

Separately, Indonesia Exhibition Companies Association (Asperapi) deputy chairman Ernst Remboen said the exhibition business in Indonesia would remain strong in the future despite the global economic slowdown.

“The exhibition business in Indonesia grows 10 to 15 percent annually and contributes up to 70 percent to overall MICE activities,” Ernst told the Post, adding that Asperapi data showed that 265 exhibitions were held in 2010 and 324 this year.

Tourism and Creative Economy deputy minister Sapta Nirwandar was optimistic that the MICE industry would grow bigger in Indonesia because the number of MICE tourists was increasing every year.

Sapta said that in 2010, the number of MICE tourists was 236,000 or 3.37 percent out of seven million arrivals while in 2009, the figure was 205,000 or 3.24 percent out of 6.3 million arrivals. (nfo)