Jakarta (Antara Babel) - The ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) has taken a group of ten Chinese journalists to Indonesia during a media trip focusing on promoting tourism cooperation between Indonesia and China.
"The media trip was organized to mark the year of ASEAN-China tourism cooperation this year," Director of Information and PR Division of ASEAN-China Center Vithit Powattanasuk said here on Tuesday.
Arriving in Indonesia on Monday, the group of ten journalists from seven Chinese medias were invited to meet local administration officials of Jakarta, the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta and visit Thousand Islands in North Jakarta.
They were also scheduled to visit several other tourism and cultural attractions in Jakarta such as the National Museum, and Jakarta's old town area as well as Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (the Indonesia in Ministure Park) during their stay in Indonesia.
"The media trip is mostly about tourism promotion," Powattanasuk said hoping that it would help promoting Indonesia's tourism potential.
Since its inception in 2011, ACC has been organizing media trips by inviting ASEAN journalists to visit China and Chinese journalists to Southeast Asian countries.
This year, the ASEAN-China Centre under its journalist exchange program and media trip invited a group of journalists from ASEAN countries to visit Jiangsu and Hunan Province of China in April.
Whereas earlier this month, a group of ten Chinese journalists was invited to participate in a series of media trips to Philippines and Indonesia.
Secretary General of ASEAN-China Centre (ACC) Yang Xiuping during a lunch with the visiting Chinese journalists and several Indonesian journalists in Jakarta, Tuesday, said that exchange of views and experience between journalists of ASEAN and China is important with regard to covering both side principle to promote the relationship between the two regions.
Yang said that media plays an important part in providing better understanding to help enhance ASEAN-China relation.
"We look forward to having more exchange programs," Yang said during a lunch with the participating Chinese journalists and several Indonesian journalists in Jakarta today.
This year's media trips were also organized to mark the 50th anniversary of ASEAN which is celebrated this year.
Shen Jinxin, a journalist of a Chinese newspaper based in Beijing, said that she had a great time during the trip to the Thousand Islands of Jakarta.
The Thousands Islands are a chain of islands consisting more than 100 islands stretching in the north of Jakarta.
"This is my first time in Indonesia, but I will certainly return to visit Indonesia again," Shen said.
As an inter-governmental organization co-founded by 10 ASEAN member states and China, ACC came into being as a result of the rapid development of ASEAN-China relations and carries the aspirations of the 11 countries to promote practical cooperation in various fields such as in trade, investment, education, culture, tourism, and media.
Meanwhile, after achieving its target of 12 million tourist visits in 2016, Indonesia has now set a target of attracting 15 million tourists in 2017.
Last year, 1.45 million Chinese tourists visited Indonesia. The number was the second largest after Singapore's 1,47 million tourists.
The Chinese Embassy in Jakarta has recorded around 560,000 Chinese tourists visited Indonesia during the first three months of this year.
"The number of Chinese tourists visiting Indonesia is estimated to reach more than two million this year," Charge d'Affaires of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Jakarta Sun Weide had said earlier last month.
The Indonesian Ministry of Tourism has also estimated that the number of Chinese tourists visiting Indonesia will reach 2.4 million in 2017, surpassing Singaporeans who are estimated to top around 2.275 million in the same year.
