Samenvatting

Indonesia began tourism marketing in 1991. The first program was called Visit Indonesia Decade and ran until the year 2000. Then, for eight years, Indonesia did not have a tourism marketing program. In 2008, Indonesia re-started the tourism marketing program as Visit Indonesia 2008 - 100 years of national awakening. However, this sub-theme is meaningless for prospective tourist and shows that Indonesia tourism does not have vision for the program.

In 2009, the program continues. Visit Indonesia 2009 - Ultimate Diversity has a clearer theme and clearer short-term goals than the 2008 program. The sub-theme, Ultimate Diversity represents diverse Indonesian cultures which gives meaning to prospective tourist, but, it still has no clear long-term vision underlying the theme and goals.

One of the main problems that Indonesia has is a negative image domestically and internationally. The image is created by several factors such as policy decision, people, investment and culture. Indonesia's low points in most of the factors created the negative image. This negative image has hindered prospective visitors to consider Indonesia as a holiday destination.

Moreover, Indonesia's competitors, such as India, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, have better images and marketing programs than Indonesia. All of Indonesia's competitors have been working on their tourism marketing programs for several years, with a clear visions and purposes. Indonesian competitors have hardly ever changed their "branding" images and when they have changed it, the new images have retained common threads and there are similarities with the previous ones.

Indonesia must focus on a niche target market for the promotion campaign. The two main targets of promotion should be on ASEAN countries and China. ASEAN countries has been the highest tourist provider for Indonesian tourism industry for the last ten years. Besides, China is an unexplored market for the Indonesian tourism industry and it has a lot of potential because of its economic growth. Indonesia should realise and take advantage of China's economic growth and ASEAN countries location that has easier and cheaper access to Indonesia than any other countries in the world.

Finally, the restart of Visit Indonesia 2008 and Visit Indonesia 2009 is only the first step to improve the condition of Indonesian tourism. Therefore, the next program should have an improved focus and be a target oriented program which promotes the cohesion of central government policies, provincial government policies, stakeholders, private sectors and all Indonesian citizens, to ensure one consistent image of Indonesia is created.