Post-Expo Travel Agency Association for Resources Purchasing (TARP) held a meeting recently with representatives from Indonesia Tourism Office in Shanghai, discussing their further cooperation on developing and promoting Indonesian tourism products in Chinese market.
SHANGHAI – Travel Agency Association for Resources Purchasing (TARP) is a professional association aiming at bringing about communication and sharing information among various tourism agents. It is made up now by nearly 50 travel agents who has inherited plenty of successful operating experience after 2010 Shanghai Expo, providing tourism consultation, production promotion, brand marketing, tourism sources purchasing, etc. for tourism organizations, government as well as destinations.
Early at the beginning of 2013, marketing director of Indonesian Tourism Office Esthy Reko Astuty had already come to Shanghai to visit representatives of TARP, seeking business cooperation with them. Later on April, members of TARP went to Indonesia for an investigation as invited and the journey included Indonesian destinations such as Bandung, Djakarta, Yogyakarta, etc.
Song Chaolin, President of TARP, suggested after the investigation that since Bali island had already been a well-known tourism destination, what Indonesia need at the present was to develop new tourism products. He said “Fabulous natural views, various historic sites, exotic religious culture, etc. are all talented products that worth Indonesia to exploit.”
Vice President of TARP Chang Dejun considered that besides the developing of facilities as well as managerial abilities, Indonesia also needed to focus on marketing and promoting those destinations. He said “Yogyakarta owns the most gorgeous natural sights, more than that, the 1000-year-old temple shocks everyone who sees it and these are obviously of great value. However, the destination is lack of awareness, how to promote and present the brand at a suitable time therefore becomes an urgent question.”
Members of TARP suggested that related organisations in both China and Indonesia could design leisure travel products and theme travel packs that aimed at Chinese market, for example, add Yogyakarta as another destination to the original Bali island one-day trip or combine Yogyakarta’s one-day deep travel with routes to visit Singapore. Meanwhile, designing of shopping travel, food travel, diving travel, conference travel, eco travel, etc. are all on the list of consideration. For peak time of outbound travel such as Chinese Spring Festival, tourists could be led to Lombok island as to split the high load tourist stream from Bali island.
Apart from that, sources from Indonesia said that they were discussing with Chinese universities at present to provide training for their staff on Chinese culture and customs, taking actions and preparations to welcome increasing number of Chinese tourists.
