Malaysia: National Tourism Concerns on Branding

Chairul Tanjung, the Para Group chairman, said the brand for the national tourism industry is difficult determine due to the different tourism potential in every region of Indonesia. We need something original and realistic, he said yesterday.

He proposed that the tourism brand be simple in order to be effective. This is like a campaign. If it is excessively, when the tourists come, they may find us not up to expectation. That can be bad, he said. Chairul hoped that within the next 1-2 years, Indonesia will own its brand.

But, the effort is not without obstacles. Winarno Sudjas, secretary of the Culture and Tourism Ministry's Tourism Destination Development Directorate General, said that a national brand is hard to determine due to the vastness of Indonesia's territory and the different tourism potentials the country has. One of the alternative national brands is Wonderful Indonesia.

Taleb Rifai, the United Nations World Tourism Organization secretary-general, also addressed this tourism branding issue. During the World Economic Forum yesterday, he pointed out that the tourism sector had yet to be explored to its maximum due to a lack of effective branding.

Sapta Nirwandar, the Culture and Tourism Ministry's Marketing director-general, mentioned that the Indonesian tourism was still far behind Malaysia and Singapore. He said t politicians were not able to see tourism as a vital sector. In fact, tourism is the third largest source of foreign exchange, said Sapta, last month.

Indonesia lacking in tourism destination management ultimately does not take advantage of its potentials to boost the number of tourists, especially considering that Asia-Pacific ranked second as the largest tourist destination after Europe with a growth projection of 7 to 9 percent.

Source = tempointeractive