Adhi Tirtawisata, 82, spoke through a microphone in a minibus on Tuesday as he welcomed 15 passengers to a city tour across Jakarta.

With the gestures of a seasoned tour guide, he announced the itinerary of the day.

But Adhi is no ordinary tour guide. He is the founder and owner of the Panorama Group, one of the country'€™s largest tour and travel companies.

The first stop, he said, would be the National Museum in Central Jakarta. Next, the bus would head north to the Jakarta History Museum and Wayang Museum in West Jakarta and end the journey at Sunda Kelapa Port in North Jakarta.

Tuesday was the first time Adhi had done a city tour in 30 years.

The businessman worked as a city tour guide during the first years of Panorama, founded in 1972. Being a tour guide, he said, allowed him to have a deep understanding of Jakarta'€™s tourism potential.

'€œBefore being a tour leader, I worked as a lawyer. I changed my job not only because I saw a bigger business opportunity in tourism, but I also loved it very much. Tourism will never die,'€ he said.

His faith in Jakarta'€™s potential encouraged him to create a city tour bus for foreign tourists in 1982. He bought the license of the Gray Line, a United States-based travel
company.

The city tour, he said, offered an opportunity for people to visit museums in the capital in a day.

His experience touring foreign cities had inspired the city tour in Jakarta, he said, adding that such tours could boost the numbers of museum visitors.

'€œJakarta is the capital of Indonesia, but it did not have a city tour. Other countries already had city tours. That'€™s one of the reasons why I created a city tour here,'€ he said.

Unfortunately, the city tour was not appreciated by the public at first and few people were interested,
he said.

To solve such a problem, Adhi offered an affordable tour package to attract more customers.

By paying only US$15, each customer could enjoy a city tour that covered their hotel, meals and transportation, for three days.

'€œMy friends said I was crazy [for charging only $15], but I didn'€™t care what they said because the most important thing was how to attract more people to visit museums,'€ he said.

'€œMy strategy proved to be a success. Moreover, Malaysian and Singapore airlines were interested in cooperating with me by making a tour package where passengers could join a city tour upon arriving in Jakarta,'€ he said.

When the minibus arrived at the National Museum, he recognized the changes. He reminisced about the museum and pointed to one corner that used to be popular among lovebirds at the time.

In the Jakarta History Museum, Adhi took the group to admire the museum'€™s antique furniture collection that dated back to the 17th century, mixing styles from Europe, China and Indonesia.

He also took visitors to see an underground prison, which confined famous prisoners, such as Prince Diponegoro in 1830.

'€œAll Indonesians must visit this museum. It tells the history of the nation,'€ the grandfather of 12 said.

Adhi said that Panorama'€™s city tour was still popular among foreign tourists, despite the traffic
congestion.

'€œHowever, traffic congestion is the problem that we have yet to solve,'€ he said.

He described it as '€œimpossible'€ to free Jakarta from its traffic congestion.

Three decades ago, visiting five museums only took around three hours as there was no traffic congestion. Today the same journey can take five to six hours.

'€œBut [despite the traffic congestion] the city tour must go on,'€ he said. (alz)

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