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JAKARTA, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia would send a mission to Shanghai to join Chinas upcoming largest Business to Business (B to B) Meetings, Incentives, Convention and Exhibition (MICE) event from March 21 to 23 to tap potential Chinese visitors, a senior official at Indonesian Tourism Ministry said Friday.
"We hope that through the Incentive Tourism and Convention Meeting (IT&CM) event in Shanghai, our MICE sector can be better promoted, not only to Chinese visitors but also to other nations across the world," Tourism Deputy Minister for International Marketing I Gde Pitana said.
The tourism event of IT&CM was held annually since 2007. Some 640 exhibitors and 440 buyers from 56 countries and regions took part in the event last year.
Pitana said that Indonesian delegation would consist of 10 tourism-related operators, including state-run airlines of Garuda Indonesia.
Besides showcasing the nation's best MICE accommodations, Indonesian cultural performances and diverse of coffees from various regions across the country would also be showed in the event.
Indonesia's MICE tourism sector is well-accommodated in the nation's capital of Jakarta, Bali, Yogyakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Medan and Lombok.
Citing the data released by International Congress & Convention Association (ICCA), Pitana said that a visitor in MICE tourism sector may generate significant earnings to the host areas as they spent seven times higher than regular visitor.
He added that through the upcoming IT&CM event, Indonesia aims to receive more visitors from China, the largest market to Indonesian tourism industry.
Indonesia welcomed 1.74 million Chinese visitors last year, or 21.27 percent higher than a year earlier. That figure made Chinese visitors topped the rank of foreign visitors in Indonesia throughout last year.
Indonesia has set target to welcome 15 million foreign visitors this year in which 2.43 million of them were expected to be contributed by Chinese visitors.
