01/08/09, 02:56:36 UTC

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Indonesians Interest in Investing in Iran Tourism Industry

chnpress.com

Signing a memorandum of understanding in tourism industry, participating in exhibitions, and launching Iranian-Indonesian friendship association, are among the programs which are underway for promoting Iran and Indonesia relationship.

As two Asian and Muslim countries and enjoying many common cultural values, Iran and Indonesia have a great potential to expand their tourism relations. Located in Southeast Asia and with a population of over 234 million people, Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country and the most populated Muslim-majority nation.

In an interview with CHN on the occasion of Indonesia Independency Day, Consul Bambang Mulyanto, who has recently started his mission in Indonesia’s Embassy in Tehran, explained about the future programs of Indonesia for developing its cultural and tourism relations with Iran.

“As a representative of Indonesia government in Iran, I do hope to witness the promotion of relations between the two friend countries in different fields including economic, culture, and tourism in a very near future. One of my goals during my mission to Iran is to make a visit to all Iranian provinces and have a talk with the provincial authorities in an attempt to prepare the ground in this regard. As the starting point, I am so glad for finding the chance to visit Gilan, Qom, and Isfahan provinces and have some negotiations with President of Iran and governors of these provinces well as a number of Iranian successful businessmen during my two months residency in Iran. We will do our best to bring these memorandums of understanding between the two countries into force and in an attempt to reach this goal like previous times we will participate in Iran’s economical, cultural, and tourism exhibitions. Taking part in Ramazan (Muslim fasting month) festival is one of our other programs and some sport teams consisted of Indonesian traditional military sport will come to Iran in a near future to perform various programs,” said Mulyanto to CHN.

Regarding the executive programs which have been signed in tourism fields between the two countries following last year’s visit of Indonesian deputy minister of Culture and Tourism to Iran, Consul Mulyanto said: “As far as I know, last week a team consisted of 22 Indonesian travel agencies who are active in taking pilgrims to Hajj Omreh made a visit to Iran to hold negotiations with Iranian authorities for using Iran as a transit destination. During their trip they also visited some of Iran’s tourism attractions. Some negotiations have been also made for launching direct flight between Tehran-Jakarta by Iran Air and Mahan airlines. A tourism consortium is due to be formed in a near future between the two countries. We have also given some suggestions for bringing some tourism facilities for Indonesians who want to make a travel to Iran, such as extending the visa duration as well as reducing the cost for issuing visa. Encouraging Indonesian private sector to investing and advertising on Iran’s tourism industry is one of our other aims in order to speed up the trend of tourism interactions between the two countries.”

According to Mulyanto, Indonesians show a lot of interest to invest in Iran especially in its tourism industry. “Of course like the other countries where they have invested such as Hong Kong and Singapore, they are looking out for the return of their investment,” he added.

Indonesian’s Consul in Tehran, strongly believes that Iran enjoys a great potential in fields of cultural heritage and art. “I am really interested to see the active participation of Indonesia’s private section in these fields. However, such strong potentials should be introduced to both Muslim and non-Muslim countries by Iranian people and government.”


Tourism industry is an important component of the Indonesian economy and an important source of foreign exchange revenues. With a vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, the second longest shoreline in the world, 300 different ethnic groups and 250 distinct languages, and tropical climate throughout the year, nature and culture are two major components of Indonesian tourism.

 Printable Version  | published Aug 20, 2007