Riau Preparing 13 Tourism Villages

Pekanbaru, Riau Province, Jan 19 (ANTARA) - The Riau provincial government is preparing 13 villages as tourism villages scattered in 12 cities and districts in the region, a local tourism official said on Wednesday.

"Those villages will be made tourism village and become flagship tourism products in Riau. There will be various tourism trips from agricultural to plantations," said Riau province's promotion and marketing office head Yusrizal.

He added that the tourism office has been conducting socialization among the public and preparing them for the program. It is expected that tourism would boost economy of the rural communities.

"Tourism sectors will be boost the economic for rural communities, so not only for urban communities," he said, adding that there will be many touristic activities such as rubber plant tapping and others.

He said that among the villages being prepared including Buluh Belimbing village for custom tourism, Buluh Cina with its economic tourism up to Tanjung Medang for marine tourism.

"There is also 'bono' tourism at Teluk Meranti village, Pelalawan. Bono is river waves, and in Riau they're the world's largest," he pointed out.

There have been tourist visits to those tourism villages but mostly by domestic travelers, he said, and the province had not yet launched intensive promotion for attracting visitors from overseas.

In total the province has 242 tourism objects and there are averagely 40 national events yearly take place here. The province has set sight on visits by travelers from Singapore, the Philippines, Japan and European countries.