Cempaka Culture and Tourism: Tourism Officials See Red Over Scrapping of 7-Day Visas

"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. …”

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Tourism Officials See Red Over Scrapping of 7-Day Visas

Jakarta Globe, January 27, 2010

Visitors getting a Visa on Arrival will have to pay for a 30-day stay. (Antara Photo)

Two government departments look set for a clash of ideas over the scrapping on Tuesday of seven-day visas on arrival for foreigners arriving in Indonesia.

Scrapping the $10 visas and leaving only the $25 visas, which is valid for 30 days, will encourage foreign tourists to stay longer as well as curb graft among immigration officials, Maroloan Barimbing, the spokesman for the Directorate General of Immigration under the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, said on Wednesday.

Maroloan said visitors must now buy the 30-day visa regardless of how long they plan to stay. As a bonus, they will now be able to extend the visa by another 30 days without leaving the country, immigration officials have said.

But scrapping the seven-day option has proved immediately controversial, with the Culture and Tourism Ministry taking the unusual step of publicly denouncing it as likely to actually reduce tourist arrivals.

“I am worried the regulation would affect foreign tourists who make frequent short stays,” Firmansyah Hakim, the ministry’s director general of tourism destination development, told the Jakarta Globe Wednesday.

He said his ministry was currently reviewing the potential impact on tourist numbers. “We are going to ask the immigration department to sit down with us and hopefully we can come up with a solution,” he said.

Industry experts have said the global economic crisis has shifted many tourists from long stays to shorter visits. In 2009, tourists stayed an average of 8.58 days, continuing a trend toward shorter stays since 2000, the Tourism Ministry reported. The low figure demonstrates that a significant number of visitors — especially those arriving by land from Malaysia and Singapore at Batam in Riau Islands province — come for stays of less than seven days and will now have to pay extra.

“Visitors from immediate border countries will likely think twice before going for a short trip in our country,” Firmansyah said.

Maroloan defended the move, saying visitors planning only short stays would be tempted to stay for longer as they would automatically have a 30-day visa.

“We hope this policy will extend tourists’ stays in Indonesia, giving them a chance to visit more places in the country,” he said.

“The policy will also simplify the supervision of overstaying foreign tourists because there is only one visa option.”

He said the decision was also meant to combat corruption. Last year, the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) caught the ministry off guard by revealing it had found more than Rp 3 billion ($321,000) in unreported fees for visas on arrival collected over a six-month period at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar, Bali.

The ministry discovered that officials had been defrauding travelers by issuing $10 visas to those who paid $25 and pocketing the difference. Maroloan said officers in charge were punished by having their pay rises frozen.

The ministry conducted a similar inspection at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta but the spokesman said no irregularities were found.

The immigration department was listed as one of the country's most corrupt public institutions in a 2009 bribery index survey released by Transparency International Indonesia.