Surabaya, 14 July 2011 – After making improvements and repairs during the last several years to attract and increase tourists' visits to museums, encouraging results have started to emerge. 9 Indonesian Museums have been chosen as favorite museums under 3 categories: History/Archeology, Arts and Culture, Science/Geology/Biology and 3 other museums chosen under the Editor's Choice category.

In the History/Archeology category, Museum Bank Indonesia is chosen as the most favorite museum, the House of Sampoerna the most favorite in the Arts and Culture category, and the Science category is won by Museum Geologi. As for Editor's Choice, the favorite museum title goes to Museum Bahari.

The research organized by the National Geographic Traveler magazine from April to May 2011 took place in two stages. The first was to select the criteria for good and interesting museums to visit via a panel discussion with museum experts and professionals in Indonesia for the 3 categories of museum—history/archeology museum, arts and culture museum, and science/geology/biology museum. The second stage took place through an online polling at traveler.nationalgeographic.co.id survei. Although the survey results cannot represent the views of all Indonesians, visitors' experiences when enjoying their museum visit gave different views about how a museum is supposed to be.

An example is the survey result for the House of Sampoerna (HoS) museum, which is hosted in a building more than 145 years of age. 63% out of 649 respondents stated that the museum situated in old Surabaya has attractive room layout or interior, displays (58%), smoothness of visitation flow (32%), and the English proficiency of the museum guides (30%). Visited by 11,000 visitors each month on average, the HoS fulfills the criteria of good maintenance of collections (61%), thoroughness of museum facilities (30%), and having attractive programs/events (30%).

For Museum Geologi, it has succeeded to increase the proportion of tourists' visit from only 10%, whereas the remaining 90% was students, to more than 70% visits by tourists. 55 respondents (36%) agreed that the museum situated in Bandung has good layout or interior, 63% respondents said that it has interesting collections, and 58% said it has good collection maintenance.Furthermore, 80% respondents said that the Museum Bank Indonesia (BI), which was only recently opened in 2009, has good arrangement of collections, good collection maintenance (59%), completeness of collection (29%), thoroughness of museum facilities (49%), interior layout (71%), and smoothness of visitation flow (45%).

Indonesia has at least 279 museums according to the Directorate of Museums of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. In addition to observing the International Museum Day on 18 May, a range of activities to promote museums in Indonesia have been organized such as the Love Museums Movement, and Museum Visit Year of 2010, in order to attract visitors to arrange educational tours in museums. (source: National Geographic TRAVELER, July 2011 issue, Indonesia)

The following is the result of the survey by National Geographic Traveler R&D:

Category I: History/Archeology 1. Museum Bank lndonesia 17% 2. Museum Sejarah/Fatahilah 13% 3. Museum Nasional/Gajah 12%	Category ll: Arts & Culture 1. House of Sampoerna 16% 2. Museum Wayang l6% 3. Ullen Sentalu 14%
Category llI: Science/Geology/Biology 1. Museum Geologi 24% 2. Museum Zoologi 20% 3. Museum Gunung Merapi 17%	Editor's Choice: 1. Museum Bahari 2. Museum Kereta Api Ambarawa 3. Museum Dirgantara Mandala

- Selesai -

Contact: Administrator of "Wisata Museum" Program Website: www.wisatamuseum.com	Source: National Geographic TRAVELER, July 2011 Issue
"Wisata Museum" Contact Person: Ina Silas Contact e-mail: hos.surabaya@sampoerna.com	Contact: Didi Kasim – Managing Editor NGT E-mail: traveler@nationalgeographic.co.id