To improve the country’s tourism industry, Indonesian government launched Visit Indonesia Year (VIY) 2008. The goal of this program is to attract seven million foreign tourists and earn US$ 6.4 billion in foreign exchange. Too optimistic? Maybe. But it sure is needed. Indonesia’s tourism has been in ‘coma’ for too long. One of so many reasons is because most embassies are making a mountain out of an ant hill when it comes to Indonesia’s travel warning. Other than that, there’s bird flu, tsunami, earthquakes, or mudflow, that scare people away.
Like Albert Einstein said, “Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds.” And so did VIY 2008. The first was about its campaign slogan blunder. The original one “Visit Indonesia 2008 – Celebrating 100 Years of Nation’s Awakening” was criticized because it was ‘gramatically incorrect’. After John Aglionby ranted about it in his article ‘Catchy Slogan’ published in the ‘Financial Times’, it quickly changed to “Celebrating 100 Years of National Awakening”. But it was not quick enough. Indonesia was a laughing stock. From news media to bloggers, all were pointing at how awkward it must be to take the slogan off of various promotional items, such as the national aircrafts, posters, etc. It was a huge mess. Personally, I’d be very forgiving to such mishap. Heck, I probably would do the same mistake, being wasn’t born with English as my mother tongue; nor raised and educated with English as the primary language.
Others attacked the ‘National Awakening’ part. A posting at Lonely Planet’s forum asked how would a foreigner know what’s the meaning of it. How would they know anything that happened 100 years ago in Indonesia that caused a national awakening? It was the Budi Utomo movement, you said. Budi who? they continued. It does sound rather patriotic, and Indonesians are. But to catch potential foreign tourists’ attention, I wish they’d use a shorter, simpler, and easy to understand slogan.
Then people bitch about the TV commercial teaser. They were saying that it made Indonesia looks like tribemen country. That it was showing things that tourists wouldn’t [wouldn’t be able to] do; like when a dark tribeman (Irian?) was rowing his boat at night. Come on… would you rather see shopping malls? A lame almost naked gorgeous woman was getting a massage just like in any other tourism commercials? Or a couple was having a candle light dinner? I appreciate the idea of showing so many diversity in Indonesia. So colorful (the Toraja men with the famous stone jumping). So pretty (the Balinese dancer). So intriguing (yeah… what was that guy doing with his boat in the middle of the night?).
The timing of VIY this year was sarcastically praised. A blog I read mentioned that Indonesian government was brave enough to compete with bigger events such as Beijing Olympics. With all seriousness, if we were to wait until there’s no other big events going on in the world, when would it be? Oh for heaven’s sake…
But like my favorite Indonesian proverb says, “Anjing menggonggong, kafilah tetap berlalu” or translated in English as ‘the dogs are barking, the caravan moves on’ meaning ‘useless protest, criticism, or sarcasm’. With all attacks coming from left and right, VIY 2008 carries on. Whether the infrastructure is up and about or not, whether the capital city Jakarta’s air is still polluted or not, whether the government is still corrupt or not. It’s my country. For better or worst, I’m right behind you.
So pack your bags, get your passport, bring your open-minded attitude, and buy your tickets to visit Indonesia. Who knows, you might be the first person in your town who ever see an orangutan or komodo dragon in their own habitat, not in a zoo. Or you could go to one of 17,000 islands that might disappear in the near future due to the global warming. You might entitled to boast to Bizarre Foods’ Andrew Zimmerman after you tackle eating durian, cow’s brain, or drink jamu.
and I’m waiting for you! *wishing november will soon come*
At least three things I loved about this post.
It goes without saying I love every visitor who reads ( and strongly disagrees with) a post of mine. It’s an incentive to sharpen my mind. For the time being however I stick to my opinion that the timing was not great in comparison to Malaysia 2007.
I also love well a written post which seems to come from the heart. Especially when one has to admit the author makes some points. As is the case here.
And it is great if someone tries to be constructive in stead of slashing any initiative. And your entry obviously is meant to be in support of a project build on good intentions.
Nevertheless: In large parts of the world VIY2008 will go unnoticed. Which I regret, because I do agree with your “pack your bags, get your passport ..” and go east (west if you happen to be in North or South America), young man (woman).
[PS: I doubt whether the proverb you mention ( the dogs and the caravan) is typically Indonesian, by the way].
Tick… tock… tick… tock… :p Can’t wait to go there too, Mel. I’m scheduled to land on Nov 30 at night. Aaargh, can’t wait for the long haul flight *NOT*
I heard that hotels in Solo are all fully booked due to Soeharto’s death. Well, at least a good start for VIY 2008 in Solo.
Dear Colson, thanks for being such a good sport and yes, everybody’s entitled to voice their opinion. Btw, what would you recommend to be the good timing for Indonesia to have a ‘Visit Indonesia Year’?
Psst… ‘anjing menggonggong kafilah tetap berlalu’ is definitely an Indonesian proverb. The translation (the dog and the caravan, lol) does sound awkward and sound very much un-Indonesian.
nice post! ^^
At least they still show some effort, I’m proud of it no matter what 🙂 So that more people know about Indonesia and hopefully I wouldn’t get another question, ” how’s the winter in Indonesia ?”
vita: no!!! seriously?
luring more foreigners to visit Indonesia is definitely an effort that shall be supported;
local travellers, however, shall also be encouraged and incentified to make trips around the country.
the impact to the economy that will be generated by these local travellers alone will probably be strong enough to improve regional prosperity, which in turn will improve the quality of the tourist offerings that will be more saleable to foreigners.
how many more interesting places that I haven’t visited? hundreds probably, such as: lombok, komodo, bromo, manado, papua, nias, ambon, banda, krakatau, ujung kulon, madura, banyuwangi, jember, sumbawa,…
i need to write down a plan….
@dinysays: You challenged me to mention the right timing. Unfortunately I’m morbidly arrogant and totally trivial, so here we go: “a more thorough analysis, a larger budget and a postponement of the project of at least a yea, would definitely have helped”. But, being as it is, I would recommend the department/ministry of culture and tourism to give a follow up to VIY2008 in the next years at least.
(By the way: In 1978 the then Dutch Prime Minister, Van Agt, told the parliamentary opposition: “De honden blaffen, maar de karavaan trekt voort” – that is: the dogs are barking, but the caravan moves on”)
seriously, Din.
aroengbinang: couldn’t agree with you more. sometimes local visitors are underestimated just because they’re not using $$. hmmm, what would be interesting to do in early december back home? sumbawa, lombok, ujung kulon?? so many choices!
to colson the arrogant, i’m sure the department of tourism and culture had done their research before launching such a big project like this *fingers crossed* but yeah… larger budget would definitely help. as always. about the proverb, the dutch has it too? i’ve always heard ‘anjing menggonggong kafilah tetap berlalu’ in indonesia being mentioned since i was a child. but then, indonesia-the dutch relationship is pretty close.