INDONESIAN TOURISM INDUSTRY REMAINS COMPETITIVE IN 2010

Jakarta, Jan 23 (ANTARA) - Indonesia's tourism industry remained able to compete with such countries as Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand amid the world's declining tourist visits, an official said.

"The world's tourism generally declines. Instead, ours could still gain positive growth last year," said Sapta Nirwandar, the tourism and culture ministry's director general for marketing, said.

With the positive growth, he remained optimistic on Indonesia's ability to compete in attracting foreign tourists in the region despite the fact that its last year's growth was only 0.4 percent.
"With 0.4 percent growth, Indonesia is luckier than countries, like Australia, Singapore, and Thailand which get negative growth. We can maintain our target amid the global financial crisis," he said.

Nirwandar said the global crisis and "internal factors" of Indonesia's competitors, such as Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore, partly contributed to the decreasing flows of coming tourists.

"In Indonesia's case, its positive growth is not triggered by declining Thailand or other factors. It is much more likely caused by the value for money in Indonesia," he said.

Despite this favourable condition, he admitted that Indonesia faced a lot of internal challenges that could hamper its tourism industry development.

The regional governments' minor efforts to develop and maintain their tourist objects and destinations was one of the serious threats, he said.

A part from the existing challenges, he was confident that Indonesia's tourism sector would still enjoy a positive growth this year.

The ministry of culture and tourism has targeted seven million foreign tourists entering Indonesia in 2010 with a total income of 6.75 billion US dollars, he said.

The ministry also expected to gain an income of 138 trillion rupiah from 230 million domestic travelers along this year, he said.

Compared to last year, Indonesia could only receive 6.459 million foreign visitors. This number increased about 0.4 percent from that of 2008 despite the global crisis as well as hotel bombing and swine flu cases, he added.