ourism Minister Arief Yahaya said on Tuesday that his ministry would organize about 100 international-scale events to boost foreign tourist arrivals next year.
"We want to have at least 100 international-scale events in 2018 to boost the number of tourists. Each region needs motivation to create its own international events as part of the Wonderful Indonesia 2018 campaign," Arief said when opening a national coordination meeting on tourism.
Participants of the meeting, which will take place in Jakarta from Tuesday to Wednesday, will discuss strategies to attract 17 million foreign tourists and 270 million local tourists in 2018 through the Wonderful Indonesia program.
Read also: Tourism ministry to hold 3rd Tourism National Coordination MeetingThis year, the government has targeted 15 million foreign tourists and 265 million local tourists. As of July, the ministry had recorded 7.81 foreign tourist arrivals, mainly from China, Australia and Singapore.
The government currently relies on internationally-acclaimed annual events such as the Jember Fashion Carnival in East Java, the Java Jazz Festival and Jakarta Fashion Week.
Indonesia is also slated to host the 2018 Asian Games and the IMF-World Bank meeting next year. The events, said Arief, were expected to further boost next year's tourism potential.
"These events will provide a boast to the three most important aspects; attractions, amenities and accessibility," he said. (bbn)
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