Learning small island tourism the Maldives way

Fitri Wulandari The Jakarta Post Jakarta

There is nothing unusual about the four-page brochure in which pictures of white-sand beaches with cheery tourists adorn the pages.

"Maldives, the sunny side of life," says the slogan on a Maldives tourist promotion brochure printed under a Maldives logo.

An archipelago of 1,190 little coral islands scattered across the Indian Ocean, the Maldives are tiny compared to Indonesia, which has 17,500 islands. But Indonesia has a lot to learn about how the Maldives turn their tiny atolls into gold mines.

Recently, Maldives Deputy Minister of Tourism Mohamed Saeed, came to Jakarta to share their experiences in running tourism on small islands.

Tourism contributes over 32.6 percent to Maldives' GDP. Seventy percent of foreign currency earnings come from tourism. And it makes up 40 percent of the government budget resources.

In 2001, tourism put US$331 million in Maldives' coffers with foreign arrivals up to 460,984. The average stay duration was 8.5 days and resort occupancy rates averaged 65.6 percent.

In comparison, based on data from the State Statistics Agency (BPS) in 2001, Indonesia's revenue from tourism was $5.7billion with foreign arrivals of around 5.1 million. The average stay was 2.16 days and hotel occupancy rates averaged 45.07 percent.

In 1999, the Maldivian government introduced a new tourism law which opens their islands, mostly uninhabited one, to be commercially run by private domestic and foreign investors for tourism resorts.

Known as the "One Island, One Resort" policy, the law stipulates that islands for resort development could be leased to a maximum of 25 years. It could be extended to 35 years when the investment is over $10 million.

It can also be extended up to 50 years if the investors sells 50 percent of their share of the resort to the public.

Before offering the islands to investors, the government would first make an assessment on the islands to set the leasing price. Then, the islands would be leased to interested investors with prices ranging from $2,500 to $7,500 per bed a year through a bidding system.

To make sure the development does adversely affect the environment, the Maldives applies strict controls to maintain the islands' ecological balance.

For example, resort development can only take up 20 percent of an island's area, resort buildings or hotels must not be exceed two stories and investors must build proper waste processing facilities.

The law also ensures that the local community will benefit from the tourism by stipulating that investors must hire local people to work in their resort.

Looking at the Maldives success story, could the same scheme be feasible in Indonesia?.

"I don't see why we can't develop the same strategy in Indonesia. We have the same rich natural beauty and even more islands," Sapta Niswandar, the secretary to the Ministry of Tourism and Culture told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.

Sapta said that the government has been only paying close attention to the development of smaller islands for the past two years.

Of the 17,000 small and large islands, only 3,000 of the larger islands have been developed. The rest are either less developed or totally uninhabited.

Development of small islands is now based on the Ministry of Marine and Fisheries decree No. 41/2000 on sustainable development on small islands. There are eight activities which can be practiced on small islands measuring 2,000 square kilometers or less, including conservation, tourism and research.

Vanessa C. Satur, of the Asia and the Pacific Section at the World Tourism Organization who attended the workshop, was of the same opinion.

"Leasing Islands is a very profitable and very practical way of developing tourism because you give the entire development and management over to private sectors," Vanessa told the Post on the sidelines of the workshop.

As long as the government regulates and monitors, it would be a success story, she added.

In Indonesia, Sapta said, small islands are still being managed in various ways. Some were owned by individuals, others managed by private companies or managed jointly between local government and private companies.

He cited the famous Pulau Seribu islands north of Jakarta where some islands have been privately owned by some of the country's business magnates.

However, there are also islands which have been developed into marine tourism resorts in similar ways the Maldives. For example, Wakatobi island, which was developed by foreign investors.

"The problem in Indonesia is that we don't have a simple clear cut regulation to develop small islands," Sapta said.

Diyak Mulahela, director of Institution of Information Tourism Development, said that giving tourism development of small islands to private sectors is an opportunity to turn tourism potential into reality.

"Indonesia has rich marine tourism potential. But it is not really in practice because places offering marine tourism lack of accommodation and are difficult to access," Diyak said.

Similar to Sapta, Diyak asserted that a clear cut rule must be applied first to make sure tourism in small islands can go on the right track.

According to Sapta, the government is considering to set up something similar to the Maldives. His office is approaching related ministries such as the Ministry of Marine and Fisheries, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Forestry in order to formulate such a rule.