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Batam hosts first-ever 'otak-otak' festival
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Batam at sunset. (Shutterstock/File)
The first otak-otak (fish cake) festival was recently held in Batam for two days on Aug. 25-26.
The culinary featured three competitions. The first was the competition for most favorite otak-otak creation by 34 participating booths of 18 hotels, 8 restaurants and 8 general participants based on reviews from visitors.
The second was otak-otak decoration competition where instead of visitors, a set of judges were chosen to assess the submissions.
The last one was cellphone photography competition for visitors where the first winner would bring home a total prize of Rp 1 million (US$75), Rp 750,000 for the second winner and Rp 500,000 for the third winner.
On the final night, a fish clean-up competition was held joined by female visitors.
Other than competitions, the event also hosted a cultural performance supported by Indonesian Carnival Association (Akari).
The Otak-otak Festival was part of Kepri Tourism Expo 2017, which aims to improve the regional economy through the tourism sector. For this year alone, Riau Islands has around 80 tourism-related events.
The province takes the third spot for the highest number of incoming foreign tourists with 20 percent, right after Bali (40 percent) and Jakarta (30 percent).
“Riau Islands have been anointed as the Indonesian Marine Tourism Gate due to its geographically closeness to Singapore and [the fact that] plenty of yachts entered Indonesia from there,” said Tourism Minister Arief Yahya.
Riau Islands is also included in the crossborder program by the ministry since the province is located close to other destinations, such as Bintan and Tanjung Balai Karimun. (kes)
