Better organization, infrastructure (roads, airports, safe boats, buses and taxis, clean restaurants and hotels, competent local authorities '€“ Yes! Go for it!

Right now the country may be cheap and ideal for backpackers who will not stay long, come only once and spend the minimum. There is 4 to 5 percent more tourism worldwide every year, which means the Indonesian share of it is not yet getting any better (3 percent in 2015).

People come on vacation not only for beaches or mountains. You find that everywhere around the world.

There are more tourists every year in tiny Singapore than in Indonesia as a whole and inside Indonesia there is only one success story in tourism: Bali (1.5 percent of the Indonesian population), which still attracts by itself without help more than a third of the total.

Generating tax revenues for the government, giving lots of jobs to locals and hundreds of thousands of Indonesian people coming from other islands (in building, restaurants, bars, hotels, spas, taxis, on tours, as safety personnel).

Why? Only infrastructure? No.

To get a more decent share of the huge revenues brought by tourism every year, add to this effort: welcoming the foreigners (safety, respect of differences, training of the people who work in tourism), environmental education (nothing is done now by the governments '€“ a trail or beach or snorkeling site littered with plastic is horrible) and improving the image of Indonesia outside its borders (religious intolerance, justice system, execution of foreigners and the unbelievable religious-backed alcohol prohibition on the rise).

Sure, tourism may be a huge boost for the country: jobs, tax revenues for the government, modernity, education. In order to benefit from it, serious and consistent choices have to be made: nobody is obliged to take his vacation here. Right now most foreigners don'€™t and it'€™s a shame.

Papsjik

Acceleration of the development of 10 of the nation'€™s key tourist destinations should definitely include stopping the export of exotic birds from Papua, the sale of elephant tusks, the killing of orangutans, etc.

Indonesian tourism promotion should include the peoples'€™ cooperation to make tourists feel welcomed and happy.

The English language would be very handy in making tourists feel at home to understand what the tourists see, hear and taste in the new environment. Make it heaven to the tourists who may come from far away, close to the very cold north and south poles.

Even the Indonesian climate is a haven to most visitors from the North and South cold climate countries. Our patience to entertain them shall be rewarding to both parties, socially as well economically.

They can consider our archipelago be their second homes during their dreaded winter time.

I am calling on my fellow Indonesian citizens to '€œshare'€ our pleasantly heated archipelago with European and American citizens to escape their extreme winter and to share our nice and warm summer in our archipelago, where the birds share their chirps and frolic during the tourist sojourn in our land of vacation and tourism.

Our restaurants with the different Indonesian taste of cuisine in the archipelago is one way to bind the different tourists to the desire to come back later with more friends to taste the unforgettably tasty local cuisine.

It is necessary that our restaurants shall be completed with all kinds of ingredients to produce the particular favorite food of such destinations.

Likewise, the sale of souvenirs such as batik, paintings and other local products, including artifacts, are to be made ready upon request.

MA

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