Garuda Blows the Visit Indonesia Year Slogan

National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia is willing to spend its own money to rectify the Visit Indonesia Year slogan painted on its 10 planes serving international routes. The slogan, “Celebrating 100 Years of Nation’s Awakening,” has been criticized as “grammatically incorrect” and “awkward”.

Director general for marketing at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Thamrin Bhiwana said the ministry would accommodate critics by revising the slogan to “Celebrating 100 Years of National Awakening” as the Jakarta Post explains.

“We haven’t gotten orders to change the slogan on our aircraft, but we will make a revision soon after we get a request from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism,” said vice president for corporate communications Pujobroto on Friday.

Pujobroto added that Garuda would foot the bill and would not complain to the ministry.

“We used the tag line as part of our responsibility to support the tourism industry. If there is any change to the tag line, we will pay.”

He said there were two ways of putting a tag line on an aircraft: by attaching a sticker or by painting it on. Because the slogan was painted, the cost would be relatively modest, he said.

“A sticker can cost up to Rp 90 million (US$9600) while painting a tag line costs just Rp 15 million to Rp 20 million,” he said.

The culture and tourism ministry has been campaigning since midyear to promote next year’s Visit Indonesia Year program, which is targeted to lure 7 million foreign tourists, as compared to the goal of 6 million this year.

Throughout the year, more than 1,000 cultural festivals will be organized across the archipelago to help attract tourists.

The promotional campaigns include TV advertisements, posters, leaflets and the use of slogans by some domestic airlines serving international routes.

Merpati Nusantara Airlines, another state-owned carrier that flies internationally, is safe from any changes because it will paint just the tourism logo without the tag line.

Merpati’s public relations officer, Jaka Pujiyono, said the airline’s aircraft were currently being painted.