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BRACING itself for a drop in Japanese arrivals, Indonesia's Ministry of Culture and Tourism is strengthening marketing activities in alternative sources, such as South Korea, China, India and Australia.
“Our target for the Japanese market for this year was 400,000 arrivals. We are expecting a 20 per cent drop this year, or around 80,000,” said Minister of Culture and Tourism, Jero Wacik, at a press conference last weekend.
“This should not affect much of our 7.7 million targeted arrivals for the year. (But) we would like to push arrivals from other potential markets, like China, India, Australia and South Korea by switching the marketing budget for Japan to these countries.”
With the devastating conditions in Japan and rebuilding in progress, Wacik said the ministry would halt marketing programmes in Japan until the situation improved.
“I don’t think the timing is right for us to do promotional programmes in Japan at the moment. While the country is working to overcome their problems, we have first allotted the marketing budget to other countries,” he added.
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