Abu Dhabi: Aimed at boosting tourism to the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, The Jakarta City Government Tourism and Culture Office have launched a Jakarta Tourism roadshow in the Middle East, with the UAE and Kuwait being targeted.
The tourism roadshow conducted several promotional activities for the city of Jakarta last week in Abu Dhabi, before heading out to Kuwait. B2B (Business-Business) and B2C (Business-Consumer) events are also being organised as part of the roadshow to enable tourism industry organisations from Jakarta to directly introduce and offer their tourism packages.
Speaking about the roadshow and its aims, the Head of Tourism and Culture Department, Dr. Arie Budiman said, “The promotion of the tourism sector continues to be done by the Department of Tourism and Culture in various ways, through various promotional activities both within the country and abroad in the form of cultural performances. These activities were conducted with the aim of maintaining the image of Jakarta as a tourist destination and to increase the role of the tourism industry in Jakarta, both in the aviation sector, hospitality, entertainment or tour operator.”
Budiman also spoke of how cultural similarities between the Middle East and Jakarta could help boost tourism, “In addition to being the most Muslim populated community, cultural similarities are also expected to encourage tourists from the Middle East to visit Jakarta.”
Hari Wibowo, Manager of International Promotion speaking at the Jakarta Tourism roadshow press conference mentioned how the tourism industry was seeing a yearly growth in Jakarta, with visitors from the UAE among the top 20 most visitors to the Indonesian capital, “Last year we had 2.3 million visitors from around the world coming to Jakarta, coming in at number 19 among the top 20 visitors is the United Arab Emirates with over 8,800 visitors coming to Jakarta. Hopefully after these events we will see more people from the UAE coming to Jakarta, which is our aim.”
Etihad Airways already has two daily direct flights to Jakarta.
Sami Zaatari is a trainee at Gulf News
