INDONESIA will start promoting its culinary offerings as part of efforts to boost inbound tourism.

Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Mari Elka Pangestu said: “Trying (local) cuisine is one of the main things travellers look for when visiting a destination. We have an abundance of culinary diversity in Indonesia, and it is my dream for cuisine to become a way for us to promote the country.”

Data from the ministry revealed that international tourists’ spending on food in Indonesia ranked second after transportation expenditure, while spending on food by domestic tourists ranked third after transportation and non-food purchases.

Pangestu said the initiative would begin by selecting several iconic local dishes to highlight, such as Rendang from Padang, Luwak and Toraja Coffee, and Nasi Goreng (fried rice).

“We also need to develop culinary centres across the country to make it easier to promote,” she said.

Pangestu added that there was also a need to develop the quality, taste and service standards of Indonesian food. “We are not talking about standards for restaurants only, but also for the roadside stalls as well,” she said.

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.

TRANSAERO Airlines, Russia’s second largest carrier, made its inaugural flight to Kuala Lumpur on December 31, introducing the first-ever direct air link between Russia and Malaysia.

The airline will operate one flight weekly, every Saturday from Moscow to Kuala Lumpur, and vice versa, using a Boeing 763 aircraft in a 255-seat configuration.

Transaero had been operating charter flights to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) for the past few years. The decision to start scheduled services was a result of sufficient market demand for the route, Malaysia Airports Holdings said in a statement.

Malaysia Airports Holdings managing director, Bashir Ahmad, said: “Transaero service opens a new market for us. We look forward to the airline to stabilise and strengthen its operation to Kuala Lumpur and hopefully, increase their frequency to KLIA soon.”

Asian Overland Services Tours & Travel assistant director of business development, Alexander Ivashentsev, said: “It is a good development. We already have some clients coming to Malaysia as a result of the flight.”

“However, for it to provide full potential for the inbound Malaysian market, it needs to be ongoing, uninterrupted (in the summer) and long-term,” he added.

The new service is a boon for Tourism Malaysia’s efforts to attract the Russian market, which has been given higher priority because of its yield.

Tourism minister Ng Yen Yen had said that among the big-spending source markets, “a Russian tourist spent RM9,000 (US$3,000) when travelling overseas while visitors from the other countries spent about RM7,000″.

Transaero, which operates to major Russian cities and is the leading carrier to Kazakhstan, is the 57th airline to serve KLIA.

Reporting by N. Nithiyananthan

NAY Pyi Taw International Airport opened for commercial operations on December 19, becoming the country’s third international airport after Yangon and Mandalay.

According to Myanmar’s transport ministry, the airport located in Yangon has a 3.6km runway and 10 passenger aerobridges, and can handle 50,000-65,000 flights, two million domestic visitors and tree million foreign visitors a year.

Meanwhile, Yangon international airport, which can handle 2.7 million passengers a year, is being expanded to handle 3.7 million by end 2012 or early 2013.

Myanmar’s other international airport in Mandalay has a 4.2km runway and can handle up to three million passengers a year, but at the moment only attracts regular flights from Kunming, China.

A large increase in passenger numbers at Yangon International Airport has also prompted the government to consider reviving the mothballed Hantharwaddy airport project near Bago town, which has been on hold for many years.

THERE were an estimated 7.6 million overseas visitors to Indonesia in 2011, according to Indonesia Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Mari Elka Pangestu.

Speaking during a year-end press conference, Pangestu said that with 7.6 million arrivals, Indonesia would have achieved an increase of 8.5 per cent over 2010. Tourism contributed US$8.5 billion in 2011, the fifth largest revenue earner for the country, she added.

Data from Statistics Indonesia revealed that there were 6.93 million confirmed arrivals to the country between January and November 2011, up 8.9 per cent over the same period the year before.

This means that 670,000 arrivals were needed in December to reach the 7.6 million figure, which Deputy Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sapta Nirwandar was positive of achieving.

“While it is not as high as the summer season, December is a high season, therefore, arrivals are usually higher than November (which yielded 654,900 visitors),” he explained.

Indonesia is targeting eight million arrivals in 2012 and will focus its marketing efforts on Asia-Pacific source markets (TTG Asia e-Daily, December 6).

“We may not expect arrivals from Europe to be up with the economic crisis there, but we do not expect the market to dip either, as the economy in Germany, the UK and The Netherlands are still okay, while arrivals from severely affected Greece and Spain are relatively small to Indonesia,” said Nirwandar.

HONG Kong-based travel management firm Westminster Travel will launch this month a new retail brand, S Travel, which will specialise in FIT packages.

According to Westminster Travel managing director Larry Lo, four retail outlets established under the Westminster brand focusing on FIT travel products will soon be rebranded under the S Travel banner.

“So far, there are only few players specialised in FIT. Travel Expert is the only leader. So this could be an opportunity for us given our reputation and resources,” he said.

“Apart from Central, Shatin, Tsuen Wan, Causeway Bay, we plan to expand ten more shops in prime areas in 2012-2013.”

The move will follow the company’s business diversification plan after the acquisition of Westminster from Sime Darby Hong Kong in late 2007, and will draw a line between its retail and wholesale/corporate businesses.

“Because Westminster does more corporate and wholesale, we realised this retail business upset the corporate travel business image,” Lo explained.

Westminster Travel has employed a marketing company to help build brand awareness for S Travel and a new website will also be launched soon.

INTERCONTINENTAL Hotels Group (IHG) has signed an agreement with Vietnamese conglomerate the BIM Group for two new-build Crowne Plaza properties in Vientiane and Phu Quoc, both scheduled to open in 2015.

As the first IHG-managed property in Laos, Crowne Plaza Vientiane will mark the hotel group’s strategic presence in all capital cities in Indochina – in addition to Hanoi, Vietnam and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The 200-room Crowne Plaza Vientiane will be positioned on a two-hectare prime area within the city centre.

Jan Smits, CEO, IHG Asia, Middle East and Africa, said: “The debut of the first Crowne Plaza hotel in Vientiane will further invigorate tourism in this part of the world.”

Meanwhile, Crowne Plaza Phu Quoc Resort will be the brand’s fourth property in Vietnam.

Located on the southwest coast of Phu Quoc Island, the property will be part of a 155-hectare integrated resort development in Duong Dong district along Long Beach. Housing 400 rooms, including 95 residences and five villas, the hotel will occupy 10 hectares on the site and will feature an exclusive beachfront.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is set to transform its non-stop Amsterdam-Manila services into a one-stop service via Taiwan or Hong Kong in April. The move would result in a reduction in the number of seats available from Europe and Amsterdam to Manila, since capacity will be shared by both stops.

Currently the only European carrier still operating direct flights to Manila, the restructure is part of KLM’s efforts to counter the impact of the Common Carrier Tax (three per cent) and Gross Philippine Billings tax (2.5 per cent) being levied by Philippine authorities.

Philippine-based airlines operating both domestic and international services are exempted from paying the taxes.

KLM’s general manager South China Sea, Cees Ursem, said: “These taxes are a heavy burden for all foreign carriers, but especially for European carriers. That’s why all the European carriers have left the Philippines in the last decade.”

“We still think that the Philippines is a market with a lot of potential, but it has its limitation when it is getting too expensive for foreign carriers,” he added.

European carriers that have exited the Philippines in recent years include Aeroflot, British Airways, Alitalia, Swissair, Air France and Lufthansa.