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Indonesia's Bali chosen as pilot project for Chinese visitors

Xinhua, March 30, 2017 Adjust font size:

Indonesian Tourism Minister Arief Yahya has declared resort island of Bali as the nation's pilot project to ensure a comfortable holiday trip for Chinese visitors, particularly on security and safety.

As for the safety aspect, the minister said new improved security standards would be applied in Bali, involving Indonesian and Chinese related authorities.

"We would set up a team constituting our ministry, Bali tourism office, Chinese embassy and Chinese consulate general office plus National Search and Rescue Agency of Basarnas to monitor Bali destinations favored by Chinese tourists," the minister said when meeting with Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng on Wednesday.

Indonesia would intensify the operation of Tourism Police in Bali to provide rapid responses should unexpected events occur against Chinese visitors, he added.

"Besides those aspects, the Bali Tourism Board would open Mandarin-speaking facility to convey information related to tourism. The board would also provide Mandarin-speaking hotline for Chinese visitors. The ambassador would assist these tasks," the minister said.

On information aspect, the Bali regional government would speed up the provision of Chinese signs in public spaces in Bali, along with English, French and Arabic languages.

The pilot project in Bali for Chinese visitors was aimed to address concerns conveyed by the ambassador over several mishaps and problems encountered by the Chinese tourists in Bali.

Chinese topped foreign tourists visiting Bali in January this year. The Bali government witnessed Chinese visitors grow more than 92 percent in January from a month earlier, thanks to expanding direct flights from China.

The resort island is Indonesia's award-winning destination, visited by millions of tourists from across the world each year. The island was recently tipped as world's best destination this year by influential travel reviewer website TripAdvisor.

Bali was also selected as the Asian Best Island for 12 consecutive years by DestinAsian website.

During his meeting with the minister, Ambassador Xie said Indonesia and China have huge potentialities that can be tapped on in tourism with China a major market for Indonesia.

The ambassador said Indonesia has more opportunities in the region to grab China's outbound tourists which are estimated to reach 140 million this year.

"So that's why I propose to further improve our cooperation," he added.

Ambassador Xie also extended invitations for President Joko Widodo and Tourism Minister Arief to attend a Belt and Road Forum for international cooperation slated for May 15-16 in Beijing.

The Indonesian government is striving to develop tourism as the nation's core industry, replacing oil and gas, coal and palm oil sectors.

The Southeast Asia's largest economy expects to welcome 20 million foreign visitors and earn more than 24 billion U.S. dollars from tourism by 2019. Endit