China's tourism administration and travel agencies are doing their best to help restore Indonesian tourism market, after it was hit by the monstrous tsunami last December.

Half a year has passed, and the Indonesian tourism market still felt the aftermath of the Dec. 26 tsunami, which claimed tens of thousands of lives. Local tour guide Franki, who serves at a Jakarta-based travel agency, told Xinhua that the local travel business in June was only half of that of previous year.

Putv Sudiarta, an official with the Bali provincial tourism bureau said from January to April, the number of tourists from Asian countries dropped by 30 percent, compared with the same period last year.

As one of the major tourist sources of Indonesia, China made efforts to help restore Indonesian tourism market by sending tourism officials and heads of the country's influential travel agencies to Indonesia doing field study and asked those agencies to offer Indonesian travel package to Chinese mainland tourists as soon as possible.

Holding a talk with official Chinese tourism delegation, Jero Warjik, Minister of Tourism and Culture of Indonesian government said, "Indonesia is a safe tourism destination."

He said tourism is one of the pillar industries of Indonesia and China is one of the major tourist sources for his country. He sincerely hoped that Chinese tourists could come back as soon as possible.

In 2004, 84,700 Chinese mainland tourists went to Indonesia, up 49 percent from the previous year. It is estimated that the figure will reach 500,000 in two years.

Franki said the distance from Aceh, which was hit by tsunami, to Bali, the most well known tourism destination of Indonesia, was nearly 3,000 km, similar as the distance between Kunming and Beijing. Therefore, Bali and Jakarta were very safe places for travelers.

Tian Bing, an architect from Beijing, said he has been to Bali twice, before and after the tsunami. And he found no differences on Bali Island.

After field study, some Chinese travel agencies started to organize Chinese mainland tourists to go back Indonesia. The China Youth Tourism Services (CYTS) planned to send at least one tourism group to Indonesia a week. And the Shanghai-based Spring International Travel Agency was negotiating with relevant departments on opening charter flights between Chinese mainland and Indonesia to cut the cost for tourists.

Liu Shijun, deputy director of Industry Management Department of the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) said CNTA will honor all the promises made by Premier Wen Jiabao on the issue of helping restore Indonesian tourism market and offer more Indonesia tourism products to Chinese tourists.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on January 6 attended the Special ASEAN Leaders' Meeting on Aftermath of Earthquake and Tsunami and pledged in his speech that the Chinese government will encourage travel to these countries by Chinese tourists when conditions return to normal.

(Xinhua News Agency June 13, 2005)