The beginning of the twentieth century saw the arrival of the first tourist offices in the Dutch East Indies. In 1908 the Travellers Official Information Bureau of the Netherlands Indies (Officieele Vereeniging voor Toeristenverkeer in Nederlandsch-Indië) was founded in Batavia, with the aim of promoting tourism. It was active until 1942, the year of the Japanese invasion. From the start, the Official Information Bureau published great volumes of promotional literature, which were disseminated both in and beyond the colony.

The Bureau did not stop at printed matter, however. In cooperation with shipping companies and hotels, it offered representatives of major foreign tourist agencies free all-inclusive tours of the Indies archipelago, in the hope that once these representatives had returned home, they would market the Indies as a tourist country. The government supported the Travellers Official Information Bureau not only financially, it also closely watched its activities.

The Travellers Official Information Bureau of the Netherlands Indies (Officieele Vereeniging voor Toeristenverkeer in Nederlandsch-Indië) was far from the only tourist agency active in ‘the East’. Another such organisation was the Vereniging Touristenbelang (Tourist Interest Association) founded in Sumatra in 1916. Based in Padang, its aim was to ‘promote the travel and tourism industry on the island of Sumatra, primarily in the residences of Sumatra’s west coast and Tapanuli, to benefit both residents and visitors, in the widest sense.’