Largely neglected until recently, Indonesia Ministry of Tourism is now mulling strategies to make Indonesian cuisine a reason to also travel to the world’s largest archipelago.
JAKARTA- Agustien Mulawati heads the new subdivision in charge of looking at culinary and shopping at Indonesia’s Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economic. The division is new and Mrs. Muliawati is now mulling out strategies to turn gastronomy into a new Indonesian tourism asset.
It has been years that Indonesia claims to promote its food but until recently, there has been no scientific rational approach about ways to turn it into a factor of tourism development. “We have been taken over by other Asian countries and we definitely have to learn from them. Thailand has been keen to promote its food as a tourism asset, empowering even restaurants around the world to act as a sort of ambassadors of Thai culture. The Malaysian government has been also subsidizing restaurants abroad to promote Malaysian food”, says Mrs. Muliawati.
It is not that sure that Indonesia would subsidize restaurants around the world. But however the division seriously works at creating a cursus for Indonesian food at tourism and culinary schools within the country. “It is a surprising fact but all of our degrees to become a chef are done for foreign food in our state culinary schools. This must change as Chefs specialized in Indonesian cuisine could then be work all around the world and turn into promoters of our gastronomy”, explains Mrs. Muliawati.
“Events celebrating Indonesian gastronomy will also be organized all across the world. Such an event was recently created at the streetfood festival in Singapore in early June. During the last ITB in Berlin we also made promotion of Indonesian food as ITB Host Country”, adds Agustien Mulawati.
National dishes have also been identified. “We have already identified 30 dishes coming from all across the archipelago that are identified as typical Indonesian. We will probably add another 20 to 30 more dishes. And we are now working at creating a website promoting these dishes and our culinary offer”, tells Mrs. Mulawati. Gado-gado salad, sate, beef rendang or the famous nasi goreng (fried rice) are a few examples of the typical dishes being listed.
Within Indonesia, the Ministry will have to create also a label which could help travellers identifying which restaurants propose Indonesian national dishes of high quality and food safety standard. “We have to create such a label for the entire archipelago”, explains the Director of the Culinary Division.
According to Mrs. Mulawati, the first results of the Ministry’s newest culinary initiative are likely to be visible by early 2014. “We are only at the initial stage of our research and think-tank over the ways to promote our cuisine” she concludes.
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
