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ndonesia is still unable to unlock the large potential of its domestic meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) industry due to a lack of infrastructure as well as skilled manpower, especially outside Java.

Indonesia Convention and Exhibition Bureau (Inaceb) chairman Budi Tirtawisata said that despite the growth of Indonesian cities, only seven — Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta and Surabaya on Java Island, Denpasar in Bali, Medan in Sumatra and Makassar in Sulawesi — were ready to hold world-class MICE events as they had adequate infrastructure, such as international airports, convention centers with a capacity of at least 1,000 attendees, hotels and supporting transportation modes.

“Such infrastructure is necessary to hold MICE events. Cities like Semarang and Manado still cannot serve direct international flights,” Budi said at the Tourism Ministry on Wednesday.

The ministry’s deputy for archipelago tourism marketing development, Esthy Reko Astuti, acknowledged that MICE activities in Indonesia were still heavily centered in three places, namely Jakarta, Yogyakarta and the resort island of Bali.

“Conferences and meetings are still concentrated in Jakarta, while Bali and Yogyakarta mostly hold exhibitions,” she said, adding that only 5 percent of foreign tourists came for MICE.

“Of that figure, only 25 percent are business travelers,” she said.

The majority of inbound tourists, or around 65 percent, prefer cultural attractions, while the rest come to enjoy Indonesia’s nature, according to the ministry’s data.

Business travelers normally spend more than leisure travelers. The average expenditure of a business traveler in Indonesia is around US$2,500 per person staying an average of four nights, or $625 per person per night, Esthy said. That compares to a leisure traveler’s expenditure of $1,200 per person with an average stay of six nights, or $200 per person per night.

The government has targeted to raise the share of MICE foreign tourists to 2 million in 2019, or 10 percent of the 20 million foreign tourists it aims to attract by that year. With that figure, revenue from the MICE industry is targeted to reach $2.5 billion.

According to 2014 International Congress and Convention Association data on MICE events, Indonesia was ranked 42th in the world with 76 meetings annually. It lagged behind Southeast Asian peers such as Singapore (29th position with 142 meetings), Malaysia (30th position with 133 meetings) and Thailand (33rd position with 118 meetings).

Tourism Ministry deputy assistant for government and business market development Tazbir said that MICE development required three factors: local government support, private sector investment for venues and professional event organizers.

While many local governments have started to lend their support and private investors are willing to spend their money, event organizers are still lacking.

“You can not just [hire] any person to organize a MICE event. He or she must be a Certified Event Planner [CEP], and unfortunately, these certificate holders are concentrated in Jakarta and Bali,” he told The Jakarta Post.

However, in the term of services quality, Indonesia could actually compete with other ASEAN countries, according to the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (Kadin) deputy chairperson for international relations, Shinta Widjaja Kamdani.

She cited the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Meeting, which Indonesia hosted in 2013, as an example of an event the country could handle. Shinta claimed the event had been better managed than this year’s meeting recently held in Danang, Vietnam