Hotel Bombs Have Little Effect On Indonesia Tourism Goals

Jakarta - The country will not revise its 2009 target for foreign-tourist arrivals in the wake of last week‘s bomb attacks on two international hotels in Jakarta, a senior government tourism official said.

“There will be no changes to our targets, despite the bombings,” said Dananjaya Axioma, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism‘s deputy director for bilateral cooperation.

He made the comments at a joint press conference with the Foreign Ministry and the Russian Embassy to promote Russian Cultural Week, which will run in Jakarta and Yogyakarta between July 28 and Aug. 3.

Earlier this year, the ministry set a target of 6.5 million foreign-tourist arrivals.

Dananjaya said Russian Cultural Week was the result of an agreement “to increase people-to-people contact” between the two countries. The agreement was signed in Jakarta by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and then Russian President Vladimir Putin in September 2007.

Sergey Tolchenov, a Russian Embassy official, said all cultural activities would proceed as scheduled, with Russian artists set to perform in both Jakarta and Yogyakarta.

“Our artists are aware of the current situation in Jakarta,” Tolchenov said, adding that the embassy had asked authorities to ensure security. “I can truly say that [the artists] are a bit anxious about this, but there has been no indication of plans to cancel.”

Tolchenov did not deny that the embassy had security concerns in the wake of the hotel bombings, but he said that he believed the planned cultural activities would help Indonesia prove to the world that the security situation was under control.

“It‘s too bad, because the bombings have taken some lives, but I think Indonesia should return to normal life and I hope this cultural plan will contribute to peace,” Tolchenov said.

The Foreign Ministry‘s director for Central and Eastern Europe, Emeria Siregar, said the event was part of a string of activities to be held to commemorate the 60th anniversary of bilateral relations in 2010.

She said that an April 2003 agreement signed by then President Megawati Sukarnoputri and Putin in Moscow marked a turning point in Indonesian-Russian relations.

“This cultural event is the product of our bilateral ties,” Emeria said, adding that culture and tourism were the two main areas for bilateral cooperation.

Emeria said that following this year‘s Russian Cultural Week, Indonesia would send a cultural delegation to perform at an Indonesian Cultural Week next year in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Dananjaya said the events were part of an agreement to promote cultural exchanges.

Jakarta and Yogyakarta were chosen to host the events because of an existing sister-city relationship between Jakarta and Moscow, as well as plans to forge a similar relationship between Yogyakarta and St. Petersburg. Ismira Lutfia

Source: http://thejakartaglobe.com
Photo: http://www.nu.or.id

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