Jakarta – The Ministry of Tourism of Republic Indonesia conducted the re-launching of “Wonderful Indonesia” and “Pesona Indonesia” (The Charm of Indonesia) brands to further enhance the tourism marketing and promotional efforts on national and international scale. The brand is the official country branding which will be used by all destinations in Indonesia.
 
“For instance, Jakarta may use Enjoy Jakarta, however it will be followed by Wonderful Indonesia” stated the Minister of Tourism, Arief Yahya during the press conference.
 
Arief Yahya explained that Indonesia is still improving its tourism promotion. Various efforts are being undertaken to effectively promote the country including through digital media such as mobile apps, digital campaigns, interactive campaigns, viral marketing (facebook, twitter, youtube, blogs); advertising in thematic magazines; road shows; and also familiarization trips by inviting tour operators and travel writers from a number of targeted countries.
 
“Digital Marketing has 60% more effectiveness and costs 60% compared to the non-digital marketing, this means three times more effective than the non-digital marketing” explained Arief Yahya.
 
In order to achieve the target of the total number of 20 million international tourists in 2019, the government is also taking a number of breakthroughs including providing Short Term Visit Free Visa policies for 5 more countries, namely: Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, and Russia which will be applied in 2015, and also simplifying yachts and cruise ships’ permits to enter Indonesian waters.
 
The re-launching of “Wonderful Indonesia” brand is one of the 10 Quick Wins programs of the President of Republic Indonesia. The other programs are: e-tourism, formulation of tourism promotion contents, national culinary week, travel blogger’s appreciation acknowledgments, Jakarta digital valley (Bale Motekar),the groundbreaking of Kota Tua Performance House, acknowledgments to creaqtive people who recycle creative products, digital photo bank, and Indonesia Film Festival.
 
“In e-tourism, we will launch the digital cinema and online cinema  so that cities and regencies in Indonesia that are yet to have movie theatres can also watch tourism movies. The program will be first launch in three area: Banjarbaru in South Kalimantan, Bukittinggi in West Sumatra, and Banyuwangi in East Java” added the Minister.
 
The strength of tourism attraction consists of three elements which are nature, culture, and manmade. These three elements will be developed as national prime tourism products. Nature has 60% potentials and will be developed through marine tourism, ecotourism, and adventure tourism. Culture has 35% potentials and will be developed through heritage tourism, religious tourism, culinary, and shopping. Meanwhile, manmade that has 5% potentials will be developed through MICe, events, sport tourism, and integrated area tourism. Source: traveldailynews