Cruising Paradise

Indonesia and Singapore have agreed to jointly develop cruise ship tourism in the neighbors’ latest move to boost bilateral economic ties.

Singapore is enjoying a cruise tourism boom and they need areas that the cruises can visit; one of them being Bali. From Bali they can explore eastern Indonesia, which has many potential marine tourist sites.

Cruise ship tourism was one of six sectors Indonesia and Singapore wished to develop together.

Other targets of bilateral cooperations include civil aviation, manpower, agribusiness, investments, and cooperation in the special economic zones of Batam, Bintan and Karimun; three Indonesian regions bordering with the city state.

On the agribusiness sector, the two countries had agreed that Indonesia would increase its vegetable and fruits exports to Singapore by 20 percent each year.

Source: Kompas

Singapore Should Thank Indonesia

Singapore, a tiny nation to which I always give my appreciation, is arguably the hottest spot for visitors in Southeast Asia. I have been to Singapore for more than 30 times, and each visit gave me new story about this island.

No wonder, this compact nation remains receiving many millions of visitors per year. In 2009, visitor arrivals to Singapore reached 9.7 million, with total spending of $ 12.4 billion.

Indonesians remains on the top list of the visitor arrivals with 1.8 million, followed by China (934 thousand) and Australia (844 thousands), and other nationalities (Source).

Out of $12 billion disbursed by them, $2.1 billion was contributed by Indonesians’ hungry shoppers. I remembered 5 years ago, I emailed Singapore Tourism Board (STB), and asked them to provide their tourism website in Bahasa Indonesia (instead of only English, and Chinese), considering the growing number of Indonesian middle class (mostly young professional) visiting this nation. And, taraa….they did it.

But, I think we all agree that we should visit more tourism spots in our beloved country for we offer undeniably outstanding natural and cultural experiences as well as modern urban attractions.