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was on a plane from Asia to Europe a few years back, and I engaged in conversation with a group of 10 Indonesians that sat next to me. Why were they traveling to Paris for a holiday and not London? Answer visas — to get a visa into the European Union (EU) does not require a three-day trip to Jakarta to get a visa, with lost time and hotel expenses.

I know Indonesia hates comparison with a certain nearby country, so I won’t mention its name.

However, this nearby country (NBC) has 30 times more tourists than Indonesia for a country 20 times smaller! Also a country with less to see and do than Indonesia! Why is this country so successful compared to Indonesia? One reason is this NBC drops visa requirements on valued tourists from other parts of the world (EU/US) with much more money to spend.

The NBC government makes hundreds of times more income from taxes on these tourists when they spend inside the country. When a tourist can go somewhere else in Southeast Asia on a holiday, why would they bother with Indonesia and its visa fees and time-wasting forms? The recent move to harmonize entry of tourists within the ASEAN union does not help.

My second point is about Indonesia playing the propaganda game of the West about “war on terror”. Yes, there are terrorist incidents but let us get them into proportion. In the West, there are more people killed by bee stings than terrorists.

Yet we find ASEAN antiterror conferences being held in Indonesia with the politicians pontificating about measures to combat terror. The only way to combat terror is for Indonesia to reject the propaganda of the West (that has a hidden agenda) and loudly proclaim the beauty of Indonesia and its people. Stop the fear-mongering!