Indonesia can learn from China's experience in tourism development: Official

JAKARTA - Indonesia's tourism industry should learn from the development experience of China's Zhangjiajie as it attracts tens of millions of tourists every year, Indonesia Tourism Ministry's Director for Asia-Pacific Tourism Promotion Vinsensius Jemadu said Wednesday.

Addressing a tourism promotion conference held here by the authorities of Zhangjiajie, Jemadu said numerous tourists continue to pour into the picturesque tourist spot at record levels every year, and this represents the city's excellent experience in tourism management and development.

Zhangjiajie, a popular tourism city in central China's Hunan province, attracted 73 million international and domestic tourists last year, including 10,000 Indonesians, according to Zhangjiajie's tourism promotion authority.

Jemadu encouraged Indonesia's tourism players to go to Zhangjiajie to imitate the expertise which could be used for Indonesia to achieve the target of attracting 20 million foreign tourists by 2019.

Jemadu noted that as influx of Chinese tourists to Indonesia continued to grow year by year, bilateral tourism cooperation has become much stronger and closer.

Data from Indonesia's statistics agency showed that around 2.1 million Chinese tourists visited Indonesia in 2017 and China is Indonesia's biggest tourism market in the past two years.

The director said Indonesia attaches great importance to Chinese tourism market and tries every efforts to lure Chinese visitors, adding that Indonesia also highly welcomes Chinese investment in Indonesia's tourism sector.

Indonesia expects to receive 3 million Chinese tourists out of 17 million foreign visitors in the year of 2018.