He proudly confessed he can hold exhibition in this tourism object which is visited by thousands foreigners daily. “It is the first time for my friends in KSP to join an exhibition. It is our chance for our artworks to exhibit in front of foreigners,” said him. “This exhibition wished to be an important moment for the resurrection of Padangtegal artists since 1932. It is the time when foreign artists were building art studio of Pita Maha in Padangtegal. The foreign artists are Walter Spies, Rudolf Bonnet, Arie Smith, Antonio Blanco and Hans Snell,” said him. Besides performing paintings, the exhibition also displayed motion art attraction by using bamboo instrument. The exhibition themed “Sagilik, Saguluk, Salunglung, Sabayangtaka.” After motion art attraction session, this exhibition is also adopted poetry reading entitled “We are Monkey.”

News by Antaranews

“Eastern Indonesia areas still have much empty land to generate high quality woods. There should be a regional joint between Bali, West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara to result wooden stocks continuously. Further local people can produce high quality woods then Balinese people can make high quality wooden handicrafts with legal material,” said Mr Made Suarnatha. Mr Suarnatha added this cooperation is important to ensure the development of wooden handicrafts in Bali. Based on Dekranasda Bali data, there are about 74.000 unit of home business in Bali while most of them are using wood as raw material.

News by Berita Bali

He explained this training is a routine event that held to add professionalism of the FB (food and beverages) division of the hotel about ‘spirit.’ Suasta said there are seven alcoholic drinks with 40% alcohol. These kinds of beverages being favorite of tourists, they are vodka, whisky and brandy. This year it planned to arrange this event monthly with different themes in accord with member’s request. Marketing Communication Executive Grand Istana Rama Hotel, Bianca Rosetta said this event is so useful to add the knowledge of hotel officers about alcoholic beverages. “In this chance the trainer is Carsson Quinn, the husband of famous chef Farah Quinn,” said her.

News by Antaranews

“As one of the most popular holiday destinations of the world, it is the right time for Bali to implement standard pricing for tourism products including hotel accommodations, excursion packages, transportation services, and other product related to tourism. The bottom line is that we have to stop selling Bali in low price”, he told the press as reported by local daily, Bali Post, yesterday (Dec 5th).

Furthermore Arjaya believes that pricing of Bali tourism products has to be regulated in a legal regulation issued by the provincial government of Bali and applicable throughout the island. In elaborating the regulation the government has to pay careful attention and collect opinion from related stakeholders. To ensure obedience, the regulation has to also clearly define punishment for those who neglected it.

“I think a regulation on standard pricing of tourism products needs to be implemented urgently as competition in tourism industry in Bali tend to be worsening. Therefore I would suggest the government to immediately elaborate a draft to be submitted to the House of Representatives”, he said.

He reminded that Bali has to stop selling its tourism products cheaply. Bali has to put quality at the top priority and target only high quality visitors as well. To enable itself to get high quality visitors Bali needs to increase service quality in every facet of tourism industry. “One of the possible ways to filter out only high quality visitors is implementing higher price. For the time being we are selling our hotel accommodation too cheaply, foods are sold too cheaply, transportation services are also sold too cheaply”, he said.

Being a very small island with limited capacity Arjaya hopes Bali to prioritize high quality at higher price instead of number of visitors. Bali has to stop being proud of fantastic figures in getting so many visitors without paying attention into its quality. “It is better to have moderate number of visitors but all of them are high quality ones”, he reminded.

Meanwhile Bali Police Headquarter has just completed an office of Provincial Task Force for Human Trafficking located at the same building as its call center. The task force will have 8 personnel taken from various related units. AFP will also have one staff assigned at the task force to expedite transfer of information. Among important functions of the task force is coordination with International Organization of Migration (IOM), Australian Consulate, and the immigration office.

In his briefing, Bali Police Commander Inspector General Hadiatmoko confirmed his commitment to improve cooperation with AFP in eliminating human trafficking. “This cooperation is aimed to human trafficking operations which use Indonesian territory as their transit spot. These operations create serious problems to each countries, and therefore whilst they are protected by IOM, we are doing our best to eliminate them instead”, Hadiatmoko said. He also said that granted equipment to detect human trafficking will also help in preventing terrorist operations in Indonesia.

Spokesperson of Bali Police Headquarter, Commissioner Gde Sugianyar said that so far AFP has frequently seized boats carrying illegal immigrant to enter Australia. Most of those boats were embarked from the shores of West and East Nusa Tenggara. Therefore Bali Police Headquarter set a task force to prevent incoming illegal immigrant mostly coming from Afganistan, Iraq, and Iran. In almost all cases Indonesia is not their final destination. They land in Indonesia to transit before heading to Australia.

The equipments granted by AFP include motorbikes, computers, handycams, digital cameras, binoculars, and various detectors. “With support of these new equipments we hopefully can monitor flow of illegal immigrants from Afganistan, Iraq, and Iran better”, Sugianyar said.

AFP Commander, Bruce Giles shared similar hopes. “I hope this cooperation will be able to increase effectiveness in preventing human trafficking”, Giles said.

Garuda, like its regional counterparts, has been struggling with the global recession and its impact on the number of travelers and ultimately the airline’s revenues. The bombings have worsened the impact of the crisis and prolonged the time it will take to recover from it.

The airline industry is reaching saturation point with the proliferation of budget airlines, which are squeezing the operating margins of all existing market players. The drop in fuel costs, however, has given airlines a temporary breather. Fuel typically accounts for 30 percent of an airline’s operating costs. But as the global economy recovers, so will fuel prices. It is no surprise the industry continues to face considerable turbulence.

For the last four years, Garuda has come a considerable way in catching up with its regional counterparts, but also realizes it still has some way to go. Emir has navigated the carrier through two key phases and is preparing for the crucial third. The 2006-2007 period was the survival and consolidation phase. This was followed by the 2008-2009 turnaround phase and the carrier is about to enter its growth phase in 2010. Garuda’s operating performance and, more importantly, safety standards have improved.

Aside from its IATA Operational Safety Audit certification, the carrier’s incident rate has been brought down to 0.41 per 1,000 departures, its lowest in recent years. And, just this month, the European Union lifted its ban on Indonesia airline flights to Europe. With regards to Garuda’s operations, On Time Performance (OTP) has risen to 84 percent, the passenger load factor last year was brought up to 73 percent, and aircraft utilization up to 9 hours per day.

A closer look at Garuda’s finances shows the airline started generating profits in 2007. Last year, operating profits reached Rp 1,187 billion and net profits Rp 669 billion, out of revenues of Rp 19,400 billion. Its capital, which was negative in 2007, also turned positive in 2008, although it is still low by regional standards.

Interestingly, Garuda compares well to its regional counterparts when it comes to weathering the current global slowdown. One of the major advantages the airline has is the nature of its routes, which are largely short haul. The global recession has impacted long-haul flights and premium services – business and first class – much more than short-haul flights and the normal economy service. Another plus is the size of its domestic business, which has not suffered as much from the global recession.

Only half of Garuda’s revenue comes from international routes, while Singapore Airlines, Malaysia Air System and Thai Airways, given their smaller domestic markets, rely much more on revenue from international routes. Moreover, Garuda’s domestic business carries higher margins than its international flight business. As Emir explained, the EU ban lift is important to Garuda because it has restored the airline’s image and credibility, not so much because of its commercial impact. Amsterdam will be the first of its three European destinations to be restored sometime mid next year, followed later by Frankfurt and London.

Going forward, Emir is focusing on several areas to compete more effectively. One is to lighten the company’s heavy debt burden, which was a legacy of the past when airlines preferred to own their fleet, rather than lease, as most do today. The company expects to finalize its debt restructuring by September this year. What remains to be completed is the conversion of Bank Mandiri’s mandatory convertible bond, amounting to Rp 1,019 billion, into equity. Earlier, the government also converted its loans to Garuda into equity.

This conversion is expected to reduce the annual interest burden of the company, which reached a sizable Rp 365 billion last year. Sometime mid next year, the company is planning to go public and sell 30 percent of its shares. The company expects to raise Rp 4.2 trillion, which translates into a Garuda valuation of about Rp 14 trillion or US$1.4 billion. Assuming net profits reach Rp 1 trillion next year, that valuation reflects a PE (price-to-earning) ratio of about 14 times. Proceeds of the IPO will be used to further pare down its debt and to modernize its air fleet as it enters its growth phase.

Another area of focus is growing revenue by adding domestic and international routes as well as increasing flight frequency. This year, Garuda launched its Jakarta to Malang, Jakarta to Kendari, Jakarta to Kupang, Jakarta to Tanjung Karang and Jakarta to Pangkalpinang routes. Abroad, it has introduced a Denpasar to Hong Kong and Surabaya to Hong Kong route. Starting in August, Garuda will also fly to Sydney, Melbourne and Seoul from Jakarta, in addition to its existing routes from Denpasar to the three regional destinations.

To service this growth, the carrier will be adding five Boeing 737-800s and returning one Boeing 737-300 as its lease expires. These new planes are more fuel efficient and thus will help keep fuel cost under control. The new planes also feature roomier seats and state-of-the-art audio and video entertainment systems, which are crucial to compete with regional carriers. With those purchases, Garuda now has 47 Boeing 737s, in addition to six wide-bodied Airbus 330-300s and three Boeing 747-400s.

Garuda also operates two Boeing 737s as part of its low-budget service, called Citilink, based in Surabaya. The plan is to purchase a total of 50 new Boeing 737-800NGs and 10 Boeing 777-300ERs, in part to replace its existing fleet. Planes will be delivered in stages, starting in July 2009 for the Boeing 737s and in 2011 for the Boeing 777s.

When asked about intense competition from local low-budget airlines, Emir responded diplomatically that the domestic market was large enough to accommodate the current number of players. In fact, budget airlines complemented Garuda services, he added. He said Garuda positioned itself domestically as a premium airline, focusing on the middle to upper market.

The low-budget airlines, given their low-priced tickets, cater to the middle to lower market segment, and thus play an important role in introducing new customers to the airline market. In other words, they actually help expand the market. “Garuda, thus, faces the challenge of providing enough added value, in terms of service and convenience, to justify its premium pricing and further attract passengers that would like to upgrade,” he explained.

Conversely, Garuda positions itself as a lower-priced airline when it competes abroad, with similar amenities than its more established regional rivals. It is employee issues, however, that have been Emir’s most difficult challenge, especially when it comes to changing people’s mind-set.

One way that he has tried to address this issue is by introducing meritocracy by measuring performance and providing bonuses to those providing excellent service. Another was to not only adjust salaries to the market, but also adjust the corresponding job specifications to the market.

This is an ongoing process, but results are already being felt, he argued. “As a former banker, I realize that in banking, one tends to deal more with numbers and intangibles, while in the airline industry, the results are more tangible and real. That is more satisfying,” he concluded.

News by The Jakarta Post – thejakartapost.com