Indonesia's tourism brand wins marketing award

Indonesia's tourism brand, Wonderful Indonesia, had received a prestigious award from an influential travel media outlet Travel Weekly Asia, a statement released by the Tourism Ministry said on Oct 17. The best destination marketing award 2016 was announced last week at a media event in Singapore.

The Wonderful Indonesia brand got the award for the tremendous positive response given by Travel Weekly Asia readers, the statement says.

"This is a gladdening achievement. Wonderful Indonesia gets more and more appreciations. They praised on how we organize the marketing of tour destinations," says Risky Handayani Mustafa, the tourism ministry official who received the award.

Intensive promotion of the Wonderful Indonesia brand that represents Indonesia's tour industry has been conducted by the ministry since last year.

The World Economic Forum has ranked Wonderful Indonesia brand at 47 from 144 countries in its Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index this year.

With an ambitious target to welcome 20 million visitors by 2019, a 100 percent increase from 2015, Indonesia has worked aggressively to meet the target.

The government has reformed regulations aimed at luring more visitors to come to the archipelago nation, including enabling tourists from cruise ships to visit tour destinations across the country through several authorized seaports.

The government also has shortened the Clearance Approval for the Indonesian Territory procedure for foreign yachts planning to sail in Indonesian waters from the previous three weeks to just three hours.

Indonesia is now in the process in developing 10 new tour destinations, expected to be on par with the leisure island of Bali that has long been favored by foreign tourists.

These efforts have been coupled with the ministry's moves to develop attractions in tour destinations as well as accommodation for tourists.

Besides taking part in designing flight access to the destinations, the ministry has initiated the consolidation of state-run hotels to provide Indonesian-style accommodation to tourists.

The ministry has also launched a 100,000 homestay program for tourists, which is expected to boost the local economy.

To grab more tour package sales in destinations across the country, the ministry held a Travel Mart Expo. Last week's event in Magelang, Central Java, attracted buyers from Malaysia, Singapore, India, Japan, South Korea and Myanmar that accounted for 80 percent of the total sales.

Indonesia hopes that tourism can be a major earner amid the downturn in its oil and gas, coal and palm oil sectors.