Jakarta left with 'no time' to prepare for tourism drive

Mustaqim Adamrah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Jakarta was left with "very little time" to prepare for Visit Indonesia Year 2008, resulting in few events being organized in the capital to support the national tourism drive, a city official said.

"The central government informed us quite late about the campaign," city tourism agency head Yusuf Effendi Pohan said Thursday at City Hall.

However, he refused to admit the city was unprepared for the campaign, which was launched on Dec. 26, 2007.

Yusuf said his agency had already proposed its budget for 2008, in which a number of programs would be organized to support Visit Indonesia Year 2008.

He said the agency had proposed a budget of Rp 27 billion (approximately US$2.87 million) for this year, including Rp 10 billion to be spent on promotions. The figure is down 30 percent on the Rp 15 billion spent on promotions in 2007.

The city administration has proposed a Rp 20 trillion budget for this year, down 3.28 percent from its budget of Rp 20.68 trillion in 2007.

Yusuf did not reveal how much money the agency planned to spend on programs exclusively designed to help the central government meet its ambitious Visit Indonesia Year 2008 targets.

With a wide range of promotional activities being held at home and abroad in 2008, the central government is optimistic the campaign will draw 7 million foreign tourists to its shores this year. Collectively they are expected to spend $6.4 billion.

In 2006, 1.24 million foreign tourists passed through Jakarta, with some 1,235,514 visiting the country in 2005. In 1999, as a result of 1998's financial crisis and political upheaval, the number of foreign tourist arrivals in the city plummeted to 981,183.

As of October 2007, the agency had already recorded some 989,000 foreign tourist arrivals in Jakarta.

Yusuf said events in Jakarta that were expected to support the national campaign included the annual Jakarta Great Sale in June and international events such as the Java Jazz Festival in March and the JakJazz jazz festival in November.

He said several new events would also be launched in the city in 2008, including a kite festival and Jakarta Fashion Week.

However, none of the new programs are being organized by the administration.

"We can't work alone, so we expect businesses to play an active role," Yusuf said, adding that the administration contributed Rp 250 billion to the running of the Java Jazz Festival and Rp 100 million for the JakJazz jazz festival last year.

The city's official tourism website, www.jakarta-tourism.go.id, fails to mention in any detail Visit Indonesia Year 2008.

Only four events to be held this year can be found on the website: Trend Furniture 2008, the International Education Expo, Trend Property 2008 and the International Renewable Energy Conference.

Remarkably, the upcoming Java Jazz Festival, to be held from March 7-9, is not mentioned. Since its inaugural year in 2005, the event has attracted an average of 100,000 domestic and international visitors each year.

The website also gives no mention to the JakJazz jazz festival and the Jakarta International Film Festival (Jiffest).

In 2006, JiFFest became the largest film festival in Southeast Asia, with a collective audience of 63,000 people.

Yusuf declined to comment when asked about the website.