Indonesia Tourism Report Q3 2008 - a new market research report on www.companiesandmarkets.com
Latest Tourism Arrivals Figures
Indonesia has seen a strong start to 2008 tourist arrival figures. The number of tourists visiting the archipelago during the first quarter increased by 15.68% year on year (y-o-y), to 1,405,456. This increase is very much in line with BMI’s own expectations of a 15% annual rise, so we see no reason to modify our forecasts this quarter. Bali continues to be the engine driving the wider Indonesian tourism industry, with the island welcoming some 197,700 tourists in February alone, an increase of almost 30%.
Adam Air Grounded
In a further blow for Indonesia’s embattled airline industry, the government decided in March 2008 to revoke Adam Air’s operating licence. The decision follows a spate of fatal accidents in 2007 and another incident in March 2008, when an Adam Air plane overshot the runway on Batam Island. Although no people were killed in this latest incident, it was enough to spur the government into action, especially as a recent quarterly safety evaluation carried out by the ministry found the airline had ‘violations that could put passengers’ safety at risk’. The decision means that Adam Air is now grounded until it is evaluated again in June 2008. If no improvements are found, the airline will have its air operator certificate permanently removed and the airline will be effectively closed down. The airline was already suffering from financial turmoil, with the Batam crash prompting the private consortium led by PT Bhakti Investama to offload its 50% stake in the airline. At the same time, the airline’s president, Adam Adutya Suherman, suggested to local media that the airline was no longer able to insure its fleet of aircraft, as it could not meet a deadline for payments on its insurance policies. This follows reports the airline had already defaulted on some of its lease payments for aircraft. BMI believes that the grounding of Adam Air is a welcome sign that the Indonesian authorities are now cracking down on the bad practices and lax attitudes to safety that have marred the industry in recent years. However, the closure of the airline will have a deletrious impact on capacity within the domestic industry. Adam Air had flown 6mn passengers in 2007, so the industry may not now not be able to serve so many passengers this year.
Visit Indonesia 2008 Campaign Launched
In late December 2007, the government officially launched Visit Indonesia 2008. The aims of this US$15mn domestic and international marketing campaign are to attract some 7mn foreign tourists to Indonesia and generate some US$6.4bn in foreign tourism receipts. There will also be over 100 international events and cultural festivals held around the archipelago to raise Indonesia’s international profile. The campaign marks the first time since 1991 that the government has held an international Visit Indonesia marketing campaign. The last campaign was not particularly successful, but this was carried out during a time of global economic slowdown. This year’s launch also got off to an inauspicious start when it was revealed that the tourism ministry’s English slogan ‘Celebrating 100 years of nation’s awakening’ was incorrect and had to be changed to ‘100 years of national awakening’. This gaffe forced Garuda Indonesia to repaint 10 planes that had already been tagged with the slogan. Although we welcome the launch of this tourism marketing campaign as a way of bringing tourists back to the country, BMI does not believe that the 7mn target can be reached, as this would represent a massive 27% increase y-o-y. We believe that our long-held target of 6.35mn visitors for 2008 can be reached, provided of course the security situation does not deteriorate. This would still represent strong annual growth of over 15%.
Indonesia Losing Tourism Competitiveness
The World Economic Forum recently released its second annual World Tourism Competitiveness Index. Indonesia has fallen 20 places from last year, to now be ranked at 80 out of 130 countries surveyed. The 2008 report placed particular emphasis on the issue of ‘balancing economic development and environmental stability’. The WEF’s analysis tallies very much with BMI’s own views on the country. In the WEF’s analysis, Indonesia scores highly in areas such as price competitiveness and national prioritisation of travel and tourism. However, weaknesses included underdeveloped tourism infrastructure and other issues related to
tourist safety and security.
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Author:
Mike King
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Source: http://www.pr-inside.com/
September 15th, 2008
Jane Hampson , Contributor , Darwin, Australia
How fitting that an art exhibition dwelling on memory should be the subject of an exchange between Indonesia and northern Australia.
There is a long history of trade between the North — the Top End of Australia’s Northern Territory, as it is called — and Indonesia. It is a history barely known to the broader Australian public, but in the north, Australia’s vast and last frontier, it is a constant point of reference.
The exchange then was between two peoples — the Yolngu inhabitants and Macassan traders who came to the Top End in search of trepang, sea cucumbers.
Evidence of their presence remains today, in the banyan trees they planted which still stand on Darwin’s streets and in Yolngu words (bapa and rupiah, for father and money just two examples) borrowed from Macassarese.
When the Australian government banned the trade in the early 1900s, the North’s links with Indonesia, once driven naturally by trade winds and tides, were relegated to memory.
Fast forward to 2005, and the advent of the Arafura Craft Exchange, a project initiated by The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and championed by the Indonesian consulate in Darwin, a program which has effectively resurrected these natural links, now in the realm of the arts and culture.
The Arafura Craft Exchange is a series of three triennial exhibitions featuring Australian and Indonesian artists.
The first in 2005 focused on fiber art. The second, on at present, focuses on ceramics and is curated by Sudjud Dartanto, an academic at the Indonesia Institute of the Arts in Yogyakarta.
Titled “Trajectory of Memories, Tradition and Modernity in Ceramics” the exhibition features the work of seven artists, four from Indonesia and three from Australia.
Memory as a bridge between past and present is the central theme: It is the traces of the past remaining in a newly created whole that interest Mr. Dartanto and the artists.
The work of Sydney ceramicist Jenny Orchard, for example, references directly her childhood spent in Zimbabwe and the benign animal spirits who were believed to keep the nearby Shona village safe.
Her glazed totems incorporate elephant heads and human eyes, talons, tentacles, human skulls and roses.
Orchard literally piles one element of memory on top of another to create oddly naive and fragile fantasy figures, the tallest of which threatens to topple down and smash reality.
The figurines in Indonesian Titarubi’s installation Silent Sounds of War (2002) reference memory and childhood in a different way.
The figures — torsos only, no legs — stand in a line which extends from biggest to smallest. The installation works as a metaphor for memory as a bridge between past and present.
The figures are modeled by hand and subtly different in form and pose. Yet, placed in a line as they are, arms outstretched to create an undulating wave, the figures are imbued with a sense of uniformity.
This is a line made up of individuals which, like a Broadway chorus line, works as one. Titarubi admits the body referred to in the work is her own and the subjugation and conformity implied speaks volumes about the politics of the female body and the evolution of female self-perception.
The confluence of tradition and modernity is another theme in Dartanto’s exhibition, one particularly pertinent to Indonesia as modernization steamrolls through the archipelago, often damaging traditional ways of living.
Asmudjo Jono Irianto’s Broken Brigade takes on “the immaturity of modern society” as it pertains to Indonesia, displaying uniform figures with rocks on (or in) their heads. Irianto directly questions the notion of modernization as progress and laments the loss of traditional wisdom.
Two other artists in the group pay homage to traditional culture. Dona Prawita Arissuta with Never end 1 has assembled a collection of jars filled with ceramic sweets. These are Javanese treats remembered from her childhood and associated with traditional celebrations.
Noor Sudiyati is another artist who references Javanese culture, reinterpreting ancient fertility symbols (Peri Daun, or leaf fairy) in her rough-textured totemic figures formed from hand-collected clay.
Likewise her Yin-Yang is a reminder of the need for balance in life and reworks an ancient symbol.
“Trajectory” implies a sense of firm direction, a sense of where things are heading. Yet often in this exhibition, works are guided more by a sense of where things have been and revolve around the point where collective and individual memory meet.
Michael Doolan’s ceramic figures, teddy bears glazed in lurid pop-art colors and metallic finishes, lead us to contemplate the collision of individual and collective memory. The teddy bear may be a universally recognized symbol of childhood, yet for each person there is but one so fondly remembered.
In an entirely different manner, Harvey Ottley embraces a traditional ceramic technique used by Native American Navajo and Acomo nations.
At the peak point during kiln firing, Ottley introduces thin veins of horsehair onto the surfaces of her vases. The hairs then leave traces, in their own delicate random trajectories, across the vases’ smooth contours.
Clay is the most elemental of media. Tactile and of the very earth itself, it is shaped by hand and set by fire into forms ranging from the most brittle of china to solid brick. While the works in “Trajectory” utilize clay and involve artisanal processes, the end products confirm the notion of ceramics as art.
Dartanto has put together a subtle and thoughtful show, with works displaying both intellectual rigor and technical mastery. It is a modest-sized exhibition which punches well above its weight, incorporating multiple themes and providing an overview of contemporary ceramics practice.
As this exhibition indicates, exchanges, artistic and otherwise, are a natural trajectory for Darwin and Indonesia, and the potential outcomes of creative dialogue are full of promise.
Source: The Jakarta Post
September 15th, 2008