VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Banda Aceh municipality has set a target of attracting at least one million tourists by 2021, according to a local official. "We are upbeat that the target could be achieved given the fact that the number of tourists to Banda Aceh has continued to rise consistently," Banda Aceh Mayor Aminullah Usman said in a statement here Tuesday.

Banda Aceh has intensified tourism promotion both locally and nationally through various media outlets in the country.

Devastated by a deadly tsunami and earthquake 15 years ago, Banda Aceh was formerly home to the Sultanate of Aceh Darussalam.

He hoped the tourists would come to the city whose nickname is the "Veranda of Mecca" and enjoy the scenery of the city and the remnants of the sultanate.

The number of tourists visiting Banda Aceh in 2018 reached 393,700 and that increased to 503,992, or 28 percent in 2019.

"In 2017, 288,388 tourists visited Banda Aceh, and the figure rose to more than 500 thousand in 2019," he said.

Baiturrahman Grand Mosque is still a magnet and a religious tourism icon of Banda Aceh, in addition to other interesting tourist attractions.

"From cultural preservation, arts and culture, culinary, and of course Aceh's most famous coffee. Banda Aceh has also been nicknamed 'the City of 1,001 coffee shops', a cup of coffee with a million flavors - a million stories," he explained.

Banda Aceh also shares a border with Aceh Besar and Sabang so the area is known for its marine tourism, beaches, and beautiful natural panorama.

"In the past, Banda Aceh used to be synonymous with tsunamis and prolonged conflict, but now it has turned into a beautiful, safe and comfortable city to visit. Come to our city and see for yourselves," Mayor Aminullah said.

President Director of Sindo Media Sururi Al Faruq, who signed an agreement to promote the city of Banda Aceh, concurred that the capital of Aceh Province is very attractive to people of Indonesia and international visitors.

"We are keen to report positive things about Aceh, especially Banda Aceh to be better known. That is one of our functions as a media so that tourists do not only visit Solo, Yogyakarta or Banyuwangi, but also Banda Aceh," he said. (INE/ANTARA)

Local fishermen in West Aceh district, Aceh Province located 14 Iranian nationals whose boat was stranded in Hindia Ocean, near Meulaboh city, Tuesday, because of a broken oil pump, an official said here Tuesday.  

"The boat had shut down at the 04° 26' 616 N 064° 22' 488 E coordinates on Maldives waters, and was adrift in Meulaboh waters (in West Aceh district), with 15 mil distances to the nearest land," the Meulaboh Immigration Office's Head of Technology, Information, and Communication, Adi Hari Pianto said, citing they had been in the middle of ocean since Monday, January 27.

The boat which carried no permits, documents, or a flag, was tugged by a local motorboat to the Meulaboh Port which is situated at 04° 7' 39.306" N 96° 8' 15.2088 E. The broken vessel will be checked and repaired by the port's mechanics, Pianto added.

The 14 Iranian nationals were identified as Lal Muhammad, Annar, Al Abbas, Abdullah, Mohammad Rafiq, Abdul Nasir, Abdullah Fariziq, Jawi, Ismail, Muhammad Rafiq, Nathim, Adam, Syahaqi, and Amir Muhammad, according to the immigration's initial probe.

However, the Indonesian authorities will contact their counterparts at the Embassy of Iran to confirm the identities of the nationals, he remarked.

Meanwhile, the Meulaboh Immigration Office is still checking their travel documents to Indonesia, Pianto said.

Apart from the embassy, the Meulaboh Immigration Office will also request support from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for an interpreter, as none of the local officers speaks Persian. With an interpreter, the immigration offices hope to glean more information on the 14 Iranian nationals, Pianto said. (INE/ANTARA)

The Bogor city administration gave its approval to a foreign investment plan to build plastic waste-to-oil facilities in the final disposal site (TPA) in Galuga Village of Bogor District, West Java.

Bogor Mayor Bima Arya here, Wednesday, spoke of having inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the British recycling company Plastic Energy Limited to process plastic waste at the Galuga disposal site.

The London-based company will require approval from both the Bogor district and Bogor city administrations to build the plant.

Arya noted that the approval for building a plastic waste recycling plant is in accordance with the city's program of "Botak," or Bogor with no-plastic bags, to minimize the use of plastic bags in the city.

The Bogor mayor on Tuesday (Jan 28) has met with a representative of the British company Kirk Evans at the city hall.

Evans noted at the meeting that his company had the technology to transform plastic waste into diesel oil through the process of pyrolysis.

The plastic waste supply would be sourced from TPA Galuga in Bogor District that collected all types of waste from Jakarta, Bogor District, and Bogor City.

The company was planning to build five waste-to-fuel plants costing $40 million each across West Java.

Each plant is expected to daily process 70 tons of low-grade plastic waste, including plastic bags and wrappers, and convert it to fuel. For every ton of plastic waste, the plant can produce 860 liters of fuel, comprising 80 percent diesel and 20 percent naphtha.

Arya recently revealed that Bogor City produces 600 tons of waste per day, of which 13 percent is plastic waste. (INE/ANTARA)

China's new coronavirus outbreak has made the Indonesia Tour and Travel Agency Association (ASITA) concerned with slowing demand for tour packages as several countries have reported cases of infection, Head of the ASITA-Yogyakarta Chapter Udhi Sudiyanto said.

"Despite the absence of significant cancels, the demands for tour packages this month and next months may get decreased compared to those in the previous months," he told journalists in Yogyakarta on Tuesday.

This situation indicated that many foreign tourists still wait and see the development of this novel coronavirus that has killed at least 106 people in China, he said, adding that travel agencies become one of the tourism industry players that get impacted.

Travelers need safety, security, and comfortability. Therefore, the government and other related stakeholders of the tourism industry are expected to do everything necessary to ensure that both domestic and foreign tourists coming to Yogyakarta feel safe and comfortable, he said.

As part of the government's precautionary measures, a thermal scanner has been installed in Yogyakart's airport but the government is expected to be more serious in monitoring the travelers from China on their arrivals and departures so that they can be handled immediately and properly if something unexpected occurs.

Udhi Sudiyanto admitted that China is one of the primary markets for Yogyakarta's tourism industry.

Chinese authorities declared the first case of coronavirus after a person with pneumonia was hospitalized in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, according to an official statement of the WHO.

Over the past weeks, people, with symptoms of pneumonia and reported travel history to Wuhan, had been identified at international airports.

This novel coronavirus has, so far, claimed at least 106 lives in China, while several other countries, such as Thailand, Australia, Singapore, the United States, Japan, and Canada, have announced their confirmed cases.

However, none of the confirmed cases were found in Indonesia. Apart from this reality, since the issuance of an official statement by the WHO on the coronavirus outbreak in China, the Indonesian government has remained on alert.

As part of its precautionary measures, thermal scanners have been installed at various airports around the archipelago for screening international passengers. The thermal scanners are aimed at detecting any foreign tourists symptomatic with this novel coronavirus.

Several hospitals in Indonesia's big cities have also made necessary preparations to handle those with suspected coronavirus symptoms. (ANTARA)