Visit Safer Indonesia

By Barrie | December 29th, 2007 | 1 Comment »

The just-launched campaign aiming to increase tourism in 2008 started with a small but embarrassing grammatical mistake in the slogan. The government, nevertheless, recognized the mistake and revised the tagline to ensure it says, “Visit Indonesia Year 2008, celebrating 100 years of national awakening” and not “nation’s awakening”.

The revised slogan will appear on international television and national flag carrier aircraft as part of a global campaign to woo tourists according to the Jakarta Post.

But the deeper problem of the slogan does not rest with the grammar, but the message.

“Celebrating 100 years of national awakening” speaks to Indonesians but probably means nothing to foreigners.

The slogan refers to the 100th anniversary of the Boedi Oetomo nationalist organization, on May 20, 1908, the date later commemorated as National Awakening Day.

We cannot help but compare our global tourism tagline with those of our more advanced and experienced neighbors such as “Uniquely Singapore, discover a world of unique contrasts“, “Malaysia Truly Asia“, or “Amazing Thailand“.

These taglines all relate to what visitors can expect when they visit, experiences that can leave a lasting impression.

But “100 years of national awakening” does not relate to the experience of tourists visiting Indonesia. One even jokes, after reading the tagline on a plane, “As long as the pilots stay awake, that should be fine for us”.

We don’t know who picked the slogan. But it truly reflects the mentality of our bureaucrats who prefer meaningless catchphrases and acronyms to substance.

Compared to Malaysia and Singapore, and possibly Thailand, Indonesia much more to offer visitors.

We have unparalleled cultural diversity — from the very Muslim west of Indonesia to the very Christian east, and the mixture in between. We have breathtaking natural beauty, including beautiful beaches, with only Canada having a longer shoreline. Many of Indonesia’s wonders have been recognized as world heritage sites.

However, tourism suffers from sub-optimal transportation and hospitality infrastructure, and most of all, from bad image.

The 1998 riots that targeted mostly Chinese Indonesians, for example, have scared away many potential Chinese tourists.

Terrorist attacks in past years, especially those targeting foreigners, have had a serious impact on tourism in Indonesia. Tourists have shunned the country assuming it is unsafe to travel there.

This sorry situation makes us a bit pessimistic that the campaign will woo the 7 million tourists the government targets. If we could even attract 6 million, that would be a record.

As the backdrop for this situation, we consider the launching of the Visit Indonesia campaign timely, because we need to build awareness among our own people about the need to mend our shattered image.

Building a better image and making the necessary preparations to revive tourism is key to making the 2008 tourism year campaign meaningful, if not successful.

The government has allocated US$10 million for the campaign. Let’s hope this amount — meager when compared to Malaysia’s $80 million — is spent correctly and not siphoned off to enrich officials.

The government has planned to organize more than 100 international events and cultural festivals across the country. It is these events that have the potential to attract tourists to visit, not the meaningless slogan.

Therefore, it is important to promote these events on a global scale so potential visitors will learn about them and decide to come.

At the same time, tourist destinations can be made cleaner and more attractive and we can learn how to be more welcoming.

And most important, our security authorities have to work hard to ensure there are no terrorist attacks. A single attack targeting foreigners would doom the campaign.

Let’s forget about the grammatical glitch, the uninspiring tagline and the target number of tourists; the Visit Indonesia Year 2008 campaign can be used as a tool to build our own awareness, improve our tourism industry, and most importantly, create a safer Indonesia.