Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Indonesian government has invited international travel bloggers to promote tourist destinations in the country, according to a Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry official.

"We have invited active international bloggers to enrich their contents about Indonesian tourism," the ministry`s promotion director Esthy Reko Astuti said here on Wednesday.

The bloggers came among others from Singapore, the Philippines, Canada, Australia, Britain, the United States, Korea and Indonesia, she said.

Bloggers from most-visited blogs such as Bohemian and Travel Runway were among those invited to visit a number of favorite destinations in the country, she said.

"We took 12 bloggers to visit five tourist destinations, namely Borobudur Temple, Yogyakarta, Tanjungputing, Komodo and West Bali," she said.

Most of the bloggers were amazed at the beauty of Indonesia that they had never imagined, she said.

"They are of the view that we lack promotion campaigns, while in fact we have huge tourism potentials," she said.

Hopefully, the bloggers would be able to promote tourist destinations in Indonesia after a two-week tour of the country, she said.

She said the internet served as one of the effective means to promote the Indonesian tourism.

"We promote our tourist destinations not merely through conventional strategy. We realize bloggers play a great role in the era of social media," she said.

She said the ministry was focusing on intensifying tourism promotions by means of social media and social networking to target potential segments of Internet users. (S012)

Editor: Kunto Wibisono
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