JAKARTA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia will hold events in several Australian cities to promote yacht tourism in waters of world's largest archipelago country so as to vibrate the nation's maritime tour, would eventually contribute efforts to meet targets in national tourism sector.
Indonesian Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said on Tuesday that government-organized yacht tour promotion events were scheduled in Geraldton, Hillary and Mandurah from March 19 to 26 and in Freemantle and Darwin from April 6 to 9.
Those events were highly expected to grab part of Australian yachters who used to spend their activities in Indonesia's neighboring countries of Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.
"Why can't we shift their activities here, we are the world's largest archipelago country. We have more attractions than those countries," the minister said here, citing to Indonesia's prominent marine tour destinations which popular among international celebrities.
Among those destinations, which mostly in eastern region, were Wakatobi, Raja Ampat, Halmahera, Takabonerate, Buton, Selayar, Sumbawa isles and Lombok.
The minister said Australia has huge potentials as marine tourism is popular tour activities among Australians with thousands of people joined many yacht clubs in several coastal cities.
Indonesia can tap huge benefits from yacht parking fees and spending of Australian yachters who may sail across Indonesia's waters for months.
Tourism Deputy Minister for International Marketing I Gde Pitana said that besides offering more interesting destinations, Indonesia also has award winning snorkeling and diving sites.
"Indonesia's Raja Ampat earned CNN's award for of best snorkeling site in the world in 2015, the second best was Labuan Bajo. In 2017 the influential Dive Magazine awarded Indonesia as world's best and most favorite diving destination," Pitana said.
Yachters don't need to worry about lengthy procedure to enter Indonesian with yachts as the present government has simplified the CAIT (Clearance Approval for Indonesia Territory) procedure, making them able to get the CAIT document in three hours from the previous three weeks before the entrance, Pitana added.
