For the second consecutive year, Tourism Indonesia Mart and Expo (Time) will be held in Bandar Lampung, the capital of Lampung province on the southern tip of Sumatra, on October 9-12, 2012 at Graha Wangsa. Staging in its 18th years, Time is organised by the Indonesian Tourism Council supported by Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy of Indonesia and the entire tourism components in Indonesia.
The chairwoman and Steering Committee of Time 2012, Meity Robot, said that Time is an event for tourism industrial players and their supporting industries in Indonesia to promote tourism products and services in the country to international market. Time is held periodically so that buyers can see the potential market of Indonesia and promote new tourism products in their respective markets. "We encourage tourism industrial players and their supporting industries in Indonesia to participate at Time 2012 and take benefit in this travel mart. Time 2012 will present all travel destinations in Indonesia, including popular travel destination, tourism attractions, and development of new products, to enable all regions within Indonesia to optimise their tourism potentials" said Robot.
"The conduct of Time also supports the government programme of "Wonderful Indonesia" as the event is aimed at promoting Indonesia as tourist destination in international market and at the same time raise the country image as one of global travel destinations," Robot continued.
"The shifting of Time to Lampung for two consecutive years, 2011 and this year is aimed at promoting Lampung to the international market and speeding up the development and improvement of infrastructure, tourism facilities and tourism attractions in the region, so that at the end the destination could establish itself as a global travel destination. It will attract more tourist arrivals to the island and speed up the improvement of infrastructure and encourage more investors to the region to develop new hotels as well as tourism attractions," Robot added.
Director general of marketing of the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy of Indonesia, Sapta Nirwandar, who is also vice minister, said Lampung was selected host as the province has significant tourism potentials.
Nirwandar also added that the impact of hosting Time would be an increasing number of international tourist arrivals as well as investors to the region. "Time 2012 is also aimed at promoting Lampung to international market and speeding up the development of infrastructure and tourism facilities, such as hotels, restaurants, transportations, and other related services as sellers offers its products directly to buyers so that the business transactions will lure other sectors," Nirwandar concluded.
Prior to the event, the provincial government of Lampung will hold a number cultural events, namely Tapis (woven cloth) Carnival, the 22nd Krakatau Festival the biggest cultural parade participated by all regencies in Lampung, Cultural Arts Performances from 20 provinces of Indonesia, and a tour to Mount Krakatau Tour.
Last year the event attracted 77 buyers from 27 countries, with top five buyers consisting of the Netherlands, India, Singapore, USA, Indonesia, Korea, and Singapore. Time 2011 also attracted a total of 84 sellers from 64 companies from various provinces in Indonesia, dominated by Jakarta, Bali, Central Java, Yogyakarta, West Java, East Java, Lampung, North Sumatera, Central Sulawesi, and West Nusa Tenggara.