The Indonesia Tourism Ministry has set a target of attracting 20 million tourists by 2019, and has identified culinary tourism to achieve this objective. The ministry is collaborating with 100 restaurants across the globe to participate in this programme, through the Wonderful Indonesia’s co-branding program.
The programme kicks off with the Wonderful Indonesia Gastronomy Forum 2018 last week which the ministry hosted. 250 tourism stakeholders, including business people, government officials, communities, academics and the media attended the event.
Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said Indonesian cuisine should be able to compete with Thai cuisine, explaining that Thailand’s tom yam, which has become the country’s national food, was promoted by more than 16,000 Thai restaurants located all over the globe
Tourism Ministry culinary and shopping tourism acceleration team head, Vita Datau Messakh, explained that the restaurants were located in various countries, including the United States, Australia, China, ASEAN countries and more.
The restaurants need to meet several criteria to be able to join the co-branding program, including being located in big cities, is easily accessible, have been established for more than three years, and have a minimum rating of 3.5 on popular food and travel websites, such as Google, TripAdvisor, Yelp and Zomato.
The restaurants also need to offer a minimum two out of five Indonesian national dishes, namely rendang (beef simmered in coconut milk), nasi goreng (fried rice), sate (grilled meat skewers), soto (aromatic soup) and gado-gado (mixed vegetable salad with peanut sauce), and be willing to promote the Wonderful Indonesia programme.
Earlier In March this year, 10 restaurants across three continents signed on to the programme. The restaurants include Gastrobar in Amsterdam, Djakarta Bali in Paris, The Yono’s Indonesian Fine Dining in Albany, United States, Kasih Restaurant in Los Angeles, WIN (Wonderful Indonesia) Grill and Gastrobar, Fluffy Lamb in Perth, Sendok Garpu in Brisbane, Ubud Resto in Sydney, Sari Ratu in Singapore and Bumbu Desa in Kuala Lumpur.
The already popular brands will have the Wonderful Indonesia logo on their establishments and provide promotion media for Indonesia Tourism.
Source: Jakarta Post
Photo: Bumbu Desa