THE city of Bandung has formed the Bandung Tourism Promotion Board (BTPB) to develop and promote the city for tourism.
With a start-up capital of seven billion rupiah (US$721,649) from the Bandung municipal government, the board’s first move is to develop a database on the city’s attractions and to create a Bandung travel planner.
BTPB chairman, Nicolaus Lumanauw, said: “Data is something we are lacking in, therefore this will be our first move.” The board has signed an MOU with Basis Bay Singapore to develop the database for Bandung.
The city has also recently been declared Creative City by UNESCO and Nicolaus plans to highlight this in the travel planner.
“Our focus will be on ecotourism, city tours, science and health tourism. We have an active volcano, and biological and geological attractions to attract travellers. Bandung does not only have museums; the city itself is an open-air museum, with all the heritage and historic buildings and sites which have not been packaged and promoted,” he said.
The first target market will be students from Singapore and Malaysia.
“Bandung is the nearest destination for the students to learn about volcanoes and it is convenient for them to come here, with AirAsia flying four times daily from Kuala Lumpur and both AirAsia and SilkAir flying daily from Singapore,” he said.
In line with the national programme to develop health tourism in Indonesia, Bandung has prepared online marketing programmes with the local Hasan Sadikin Hospital and Santosa Hospital as well as other stakeholders.
When quizzed on the possible overlap with the provincial promotion board, West Java Tourism Promotion Board, Nicolaus said: “We will work together with them in promoting West Java, while we create and promote products which have not been highlighted before.”
The mayor of Bandung, Dada Rosada, in his speech at the launch of the board in conjunction with West Java Tourism Exchange last Tuesday, said: “The city government is committed to improving facilities and infrastructure to make the city a pleasant place to visit. We are planning to develop roads and monorails to connect the tourism spots to make them more accessible for travellers.”
He revealed that in the first quarter of the year Bandung received 1.55 million domestic and international tourists. The city currently has a total of 340 star- and non-star-rated hotels with 16,140 rooms.
