Riau Wants To Enhance Tourism Cooperation With Malaysia

PEKANBARU, RIAU, April 18 (Bernama) -- Indonesia's Riau province wants to learn about Malaysia's strategy of marketing tour packages that are deemed very successful in this region. Riau Acting Governor, Arsyadjuliandi Rachman said although Riau has many tourism products, they were not strategically marketed as done by the Malaysian government. "Malaysia has attractive tour packages which manage to bring tourists into the country and we want to learn on how to provide such tour packages," he said at a dinner in honour of the delegation from the Malaysian Embassy in Indonesia led by the Malaysian Ambassador to Indonesia, Zahrain Mohamed Hashim on Saturday. Also in the delegation were Zahrain's wife, Che Mahani Ismail, the Malaysian Consul in Riau, Hardi Hamdin and senior officials of the Malaysian embassy. Arsyadjuliandi said Riau was also interested in working with Tourism Malaysia because the province is only separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Melaka. "A railway is under construction to connect Dumai to Riau and with the transportation, it is easy for tourists from Melaka and other Malaysian states to come to Riau." Meanwhile, Zahrain said Riau can attract Malaysian tourists by promoting the Malay culture and civilisation. "We have something in common, the Malay culture and the religion. This should be studied so that the Malays can trace their origin in Riau," he added. -- BERNAMA