Cempaka Culture and Tourism: Taufik Darusman: Indonesian Tourism's Unfulfilled Potential

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …”

Monday, November 9, 2009

Taufik Darusman: Indonesian Tourism's Unfulfilled Potential

The Jakarta Globe, Taufik Darusman

Beautiful and historic sites like Central Java's Prambanan temple complex deserve to draw more international visitors. (Photo: Achmad Ibrahim, AP)

Saturday night’s Miss Indonesian Tourism 2009 grand final was a much-needed respite to the weeklong political drama involving the nation’s perennial issue of corruption in high places.

The event also reminded us of the tough challenges the tourism sector faces now and in the future: a recent World Economic Forum-sponsored report ranked Indonesia 81st out of 133 countries in terms of competitiveness.

Despite what seem to be the best efforts of the nation’s tourism players, we managed to rise only one rung on the ladder compared to last year’s report.

Among our neighbors, Singapore (10), Malaysia (32), Thailand (39) and Brunei (69) fared much better. But if it is any consolation, we bested the Philippines (86), Vietnam (89) and Cambodia (108).

Clearly, something is amiss here, but this has not prevented tourism officials from setting a target of seven million foreign tourists visiting Indonesia next year.

That is a modest increase of 500,000 over this year’s target of 6.5 million foreign tourist arrivals.

As a country that has everything that tourists usually find desirable — natural beauty, exotic culture, comfortable facilities and friendly people — Indonesia deserves to be visited by more than seven million foreigners a year.

By comparison, Malaysia, which in many ways comes close to what Indonesia has to offer, last year managed to attract 21 million foreign tourists — three times as many as what Indonesia looks forward to seeing next year.

Malaysia’s aggressive and imaginative promotion schemes have paid off handsomely; their officials seem to have touched the right nerve in foreigners and have enticed them to the country in droves.

A business principle says that if you believe you have a good product at a reasonable price but it doesn’t sell as well as it should, there must be something wrong with the marketing plan. Or, we might have the right game plan but the wrong kind of people tasked to execute it.

The situation becomes worse if you think you have the right plan as well as the right kind of people behind it, though in truth you have neither.

Compounding the problem is the smug attitude in thinking you have such a good product that it hardly needs to be promoted. The official annual budget to promote Indonesia’s tourism sector is a mere $15 million. That sum roughly amounts to what provinces spend in a year on banners and traditional dances to welcome officials from Jakarta to officiate government projects in the regions.

In a perfect world, if $15 million brings in a little more than six million foreign tourists in a year, doubling the promotion budget should translate into more than 12 million overseas visitors.

But we don’t live in a perfect world, so more creative methods are needed to realize our full tourism potential. The key is having the magnanimity to acknowledge that the current plan does not work. Some deep soul-searching is called for to review the entire game plan, including high-level lobbying with related ministers and legislators.

Tourism is not a standalone sector but, as many experts have pointed out, one that requires an integrated approach involving other ministries.

Malaysia’s success in attracting 21 million foreign tourists a year may be a tough act for our tourism officials and players to follow, but bringing in a mere 6.5 million foreign tourists in the same period borders on the ridiculous.

In the past we had Telecommunications and Tourism Minister Joop Ave and his wealth of imagination, which put Indonesia on the world’s tourism map. The former career diplomat is credited with having spearheaded the development of Bali’s tourism enclave, Nusa Dua, making the island what it is today: one of the most favored destinations in the world.

Not surprisingly, several Asean countries, Thailand in particular, have sought Ave’s advice.

Many observers have already commented that the much-awaited development of Lombok Island into a tourist destination, mired in bureaucracy and political impasses, would have long ago become a reality were Ave in charge of it.

These other Asean countries have creatively adopted the Deng Xiaoping Principle on deploying cats to catch rats: It doesn’t really matter if the person at the helm is a fellow countryman, as long as he can help them develop their tourism potential.

The point is clear: Officials have to realize that tourism is too important to be left only to their unworkable politically driven instincts and personal whims.

Taufik Darusman is a veteran Jakarta-based journalist.

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