INDONESIA’s MICE sector is set to get a welcome boost with the establishment of a Directorate of Special Interest Tours, Convention, Incentive and Events Development.
Coming under the purview of its Directorate General of Tourist Destination Development, the new body is part of the restructuring of the Indonesia Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy.
The new directorate will be responsible for developing the 10 MICE destinations in the country, which include Jakarta, Jogjakarta, Surabaya, Bali, Lombok, Medan, Batam-Bintan, Padang-Bukittinggi, Makassar and Manado.
In the meantime, the existing MICE Directorate under the Directorate General of Tourism Marketing will be expanded to include special interest tours and will become the Directorate of MICE and Special Interest Tours.
Indonesia Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Mari Elka Pangestu, said: “The (Directorate of Special Interest Tours, Convention, Incentive and Events Development) will foster the development of resources, such as human resources, competency standards, facilities and other things needed for a destination to become a quality MICE destination. The aim is for each destination to reach the level of Jakarta and Bali.”
“In the meantime, the Directorate of MICE and Special Interest Tours will market these destinations. As such, we will have more destinations to sell other than Bali and Jakarta.”
The short-term target is to prepare more destinations for Indonesia to host the APEC Summit in 2013. While the summit itself is scheduled to take place in Bali, Pangestu is expecting other related meetings to be spread out to other areas.
