T

he British Council, supported by Indonesia'€™s Tourism Ministry, launched the '€œUK National Tour 2015 '€” Discover Indonesia'€ on Thursday, a showcase of Indonesian arts within the UK, to promote the country'€™s rich culture.

Three Indonesian performing arts groups '€” Kande, an ethnic rock music group from Aceh, the Papermoon Puppet Theatre from Yogyakarta and Soerya Soemirat, a traditional Javanese dance group from Surakarta '€” have been selected for the program, touring four cities in the UK between August and September this year.

Discover Indonesia will be the largest Indonesian arts and culture showcase ever held in the UK, and will mark the 70th anniversary of Indonesian independence.

The performing arts groups are scheduled to perform in London, Cardiff, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said that Discover Indonesia was expected to play a major role in further exhibiting Indonesia'€™s wealth of art and culture in British society, since the country was mostly known only for its natural beauty.

'€œThe UK is one of our potential tourism markets, therefore it is important to bolster the country'€™s '€˜Wonderful Indonesia'€™ branding with the British public through this program,'€ the minister said during a press briefing on Thursday.

Data from the ministry showed that during the first quarter of this year, the country recorded a 5.71 percent increase in UK tourists, up to 51,553 from 48,871 in the same period last year.

Arief said that the government was aiming for an additional 50,000 UK visitors this year, following a series of promotion activities and a new visa-free policy that came into effect last month.

Prior to the implementation of the visa-free policy, the government aimed to attract 10 million foreign visitors in 2015, representing a 7 to 8 percent increase on last year'€™s 9.3 million. With the policy, the government expects an extra 500,000 to 1 million arrivals on top of the initial target.

British Council acting country director Summer Xia meanwhile said that the program was initiated in 2013 during an Indonesian performing arts market held by the Indonesian government.

Since then, the British Council had been facilitating the dialog between the Indonesian government, artists and UK producers to create a program, Xia said.

'€œWe believe that Indonesia is a country with a deep and meaningful arts and cultural history for the rest of the world to see,'€ Xia said during the press briefing.

'€œIt is also an opportunity for the UK to be exposed to Indonesian culture, tradition and history. We hope through this tour, and hopefully many more to come in the future, we can continue to strengthen the relationship between artists in the two countries,'€ he continued.