There is a reason why Singapore outdoes Jakarta

-Mustaqim Adamrah
This article is taken from The Jakarta Post.

*** For Singapore pictures and itineraries, visit traveljournal.com.ph.

In Singapore it's quite normal for people, entire families, young and old, to wander the streets, ride a bus or stroll home from work late at night -- because, unlike Jakarta, the city state is a safe place to live and work.

With an area as large as Jakarta, Singapore is home to many ethnicities and nationalities and is relatively safe for tourists.

During a recent three-day visit to learn more of Singapore's tourism board, I noticed a distinct lack of police on the city's streets.

Only during one visit to a close-by neighborhood for common people in Mustafa did I notice a police car with male and female officers in it.

I thought perhaps Singaporeans did not need to be protected by police officers anymore, or perhaps it was Singapore itself that had become a safe haven for most people.

But what I believe to be true is that the law enforcement in Singapore is the real deal.

A Singaporean told me if you speed, you'll get a ticket. And Singaporean police do not deal with you directly.

If a vehicle hits someone crossing a pedestrian crossing, the driver will face prison.

If you cross a road while the light for pedestrians is still red, you will face fine.

If you litter, the next thing you will face is prison.

But despite these incredible contrasts, Singapore does have some similarities with Jakarta.

Our beloved Jakarta is, like Singapore, home to many embassies and expatriates, as well as families who have moved from Indonesia's regions to the capital.

But the similarities do not include security -- personal safety at night in Jakarta is always questionable.

Jakartans -- particularly women -- will not take the risk of being outside past midnight without a companion, lest they become a victim of sexual harassment or other criminal activities.

The city administration's fantasy is to shape Jakarta to something comparable with other Asian cities, including Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul.

Jakarta's administration also hopes to entice tourists to come here, although it seems to have forgotten one thing -- security, a principal thought for sensible holidaymakers.

Regardless of its nighttime scenery or how bedazzled holidaymakers may become by delightfully packaged tours, sensibility usually reigns supreme and tourists commonly withdraw their intention to visit the big durian, because Jakarta is unsafe.

Most people do not make a holiday trip to see a war scene, do they?

In addition, other countries continue to impose travel warnings for Indonesia, which see tourist numbers perpetually dwindle.

For example, the number of tourist arrivals in Jakarta slumped to the lowest point in 1999 to 981,183 as a result of political and financial crises.

Numbers are slowly rising and figures reached 1,235,514 in 2005.

The Indonesian government and its administration should have been able to work hand-in-hand to improve security, particularly in Jakarta.

And these bodies should also have developed the tourism sector and promoted Indonesia, or Jakarta in this case, more aggressively.

The government did promote Indonesian overseas several times by managing tourism exhibitions, for example, in China -- but figures suggest this project did not cement in people's minds how fabulous Indonesia is as a tourist destination.

Meanwhile, each region -- for instance Yogyakarta -- promotes itself as a tourism destination, without including Jakarta and without advertising the rest of the archipelago.

Singapore has a tourism office in Indonesia, but Indonesia does not have an office there. Clever Singapore knows Indonesia is a huge market for its tourism sector.

According to the Singapore Tourism Board, 1.9 million Indonesians made up 20 percent of the 9.7 million tourists that visited Singapore last year. And these tourists spent an average of S$800 (US$520) per person.

Singapore's tourism board says the number of Indonesian visitors to its city has increased between 2 and 4 percent annually over the last three years.

I believe more foreign tourists would come to Indonesia if only the administration, and of course the government, would develop the tourism sector and, most importantly, give tourists the assurance they will be safe on arrival and throughout their stay.