Go to Bali For Sales, Marketing Museum?

Made Arya Kencana

Ubud. Officials in Bali have decided that their beaches, nightlife, villas and all-year sunshine are great, but a museum dedicated to the oft-maligned sales and marketing industries could make the difference in ringing up the tourism receipts.

In what they say is a world first, officials on the resort island laid the cornerstone for the Marketing and Sales Museum in Ubud on Sunday night.

Irman Gusman, speaker of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD), said the museum, which will also house artifacts from the Ubud royal family, would be an integral part of Bali’s all-important tourism industry.

“We hope the museum is completed quickly, because once it is, it will make Bali a more potent tourism draw,” he said.

Irman pointed to marketing’s transcendent importance in the business world and its key role in politics and governance as necessitating a museum to chart its history and evolution.

“Marketing has developed so rapidly,” he said. “It is responsible for making Indonesia the third-biggest democracy in the world.”

Ubud was chosen as the location for the museum, he said, because it has long employed marketing principles. The local king has never shied away from inviting famous artists to boost the area’s cultural profile.

The museum, planned for completion in 2012, will be built on 1,000 square meters of land in Ubud’s Puri Lukisan neighborhood. The land was donated by the royal family.

Its founders said the museum was initially conceived as a tribute to marketing guru Philip Kotler.

The first floor of the museum will host profiles and artifacts from companies with successful marketing histories, while the second floor will house items from the Ubud royal family.