RI's tourism development, challenges in 2005
RI's tourism development, challenges in 2005
Meity Robot
Tourism plays an important role in the development of a nation. It is not only a major contribution to a country's economy, but it also is a means to develop peace and understanding among people.
World Tourism Organization (WTO) data shows the sector is one of the top five export categories for 83 percent of countries in the world and is the main source of foreign exchange earnings for at least 38 percent of the countries.
In global interaction, tourism has become a window of a nation's culture. Tourism is an effective means to enrich cultural treasures through people-to-people interactions, which in turn will foster creativity, productivity, peace and welfare.
More countries in the world today place tourism as a top priority. Take Malaysia and Thailand for example. The governments of both countries give their full attention to the development of tourism.
In fact, tourism has become a strategy for development and the door to the development of other sectors, such as trade, industry and investment.
Like other countries, Indonesia needs tourism for the future development of the nation. We all know tourism has a wide multiplier effect on several aspects of people's lives. It creates job opportunities, business, and welfare for the people. It also provides ways of increasing regional income and foreign exchange earnings.
Indonesia is potentially one of the world's richest and most complete tourism destinations, spreading from Sabang in the west to Merauke in the east. The infrastructure and supra-structure is also available, which means no short-term, big scale investment is required. Only with product development, packaging and promotion with a balanced budget, Indonesia's tourism industry can move fast and help revive the country's economy, both the small scale and macro economy.
However, it needs a strong commitment and an increased role of the stakeholders in tourism to make it work. It needs the synergy of the three pillars -- the government, private sector and the people -- to increase or step up their role. Together they can encourage the maximum participation of all people to utilize the potential available.
It goes without saying that the commitment and political will of the President and Vice President as the country's leaders are very important to position tourism as a priority sector for development in the next five years.
This is especially true due to the fact that tourism is strongly interrelated with other sectors like politics, the economy, science and technology, the environment and social, cultural, religious and security issues.
Tourism is the answer to economic recovery and reducing the burden of unemployment on the country.
Data from the Central Statistics Agency shows that in the last 15 years the number of foreign visitor arrivals to Indonesia was quite significant. From 1989 to 1997 we have seen a steep increase, with the highest number in 1997, which was 5,185,243. The highest foreign exchange earnings from tourism was achieved in 1996 with US$6.307 billion, positioning tourism as the number two foreign exchange earner after oil and gas.
However, various internal and external factors affecting economic, social, political stability as well as security and safety issues from 1998 onwards have resulted in the fluctuation of both arrivals and earnings from tourism.
Arrivals fell to the lowest level in eight years to 4,457,021 in 2003. As a result, the forex earned was only US$4.037 billion, the lowest in the last 10 years.
Let's compare this with Thailand, which suffered the same economic crisis as Indonesia in 1997. Both Thailand and Indonesia managed to earn US$6 billion in 1996. Thailand's earnings from tourism leaped to US$10 billion in 2003 while Indonesia's was down to US$4 billion.
It is fair to say that Indonesia has gone through various external and internal security problems, but it also has the problem of not being able to react quickly to these factors, while other countries -- like in the case of SARS in Singapore -- were able to respond and react quickly and appropriately. As a result, in a relatively short period, they managed to get on their feet again.
It is about time that Indonesia caught up with its neighbors.
The Office of the State Minister of Culture and Tourism has set a high target of 5 million tourist arrivals this year, an increase of 11.8 percent over 2003. It has even increased its target for 2005, from 5.5 million to 6 million next year. A fantastic target, quite possible, however, quite challenging and a target that would require hard work on the part of all stakeholders to reach.
The Central Statistics Agency is increasingly confident that the official target for 2004 will be achieved. January-October arrivals through Indonesia's 13 main gateways increased by 25.69 percent to 3.8 million compared to last year.
Other gateways contribute some 20 percent of foreign arrivals. With this, the office projected forex earning will reach US$4.5 billion (Source: Bali Update).
Indonesia has managed to send positive signals to the world with the successful and peaceful general and presidential elections.
The new government has taken a positive step in positioning tourism as a strategic sector in the country, its status upgraded from a state ministry to a ministry.
After two years of debate on whether the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights which the immigration office is under should issue visas at the Indonesian Consulate in Guangzhou, a meeting between the two ministers and the minister of culture and tourism has managed to settle this. The consulate will soon be able to issue visas, which hopefully will see a dramatic increase in arrivals from China.
Internally, Indonesia still has two issues to tackle. Terrorism must be stopped so that no more travel advisories will be issued by tourist generating countries on Indonesia. Also, the full support of all sectors for the tourist industry is very much needed.
Externally, we need to look at what our neighbors are doing because we are competing in grabbing a portion of the same big pie.
The first to note is to reevaluate the visa-on-arrival policy. Secondly, our competitors like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and even the young and upcoming Vietnam, have tourism offices in main tourism generating countries.
In fact, Singapore recently opened six marketing offices in strategic areas. In the meantime, Indonesia does not have one in the markets.
Thirdly, all our competitors are doing strategic and focused marketing and promotion supported by ample promotional funds. They are also focusing on potential and emerging markets/ countries, like China, Russia, India and the Middle East, and are still watching the stability of their main markets. Last but not least, they have effectively been utilizing the accessibility of the markets, which are becoming more flexible and open. With such conditions, there are three factors required to achieve what the government has targeted for 2005.
First of all, the government needs to show firm political will by issuing a presidential decree stating that tourism is a prime sector of development.
The government also needs to reevaluate its foreign tourist arrival policy, develop further the safe and secure image of the country, revitalize Bali as a world destination and develop and extend deregulations and cooperation in the strategic sectors of trade, tourism and investment.
We must not forget the development of domestic travel. In fact, it was this market that helped the industry survive especially last year, when Indonesia was still suffering from the effects of the Bali bombing and then the Iraq War, the outbreak of SARS and bird flu, which almost paralyzed tourism in the region.
Secondly, the government needs to accelerate specific and general programs.
Thirdly, routine programs should continue, like participation in trade shows and travel marts.
Marketing wise, the world travel pattern has changed to short- haul since the 9/11 tragedy. Indonesia's major market today includes ASEAN (Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand), Asia (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China and India), and Australia and New Zealand. Besides, there are also emerging markets like the Middle East and South Africa.
While these countries are the main focus of marketing efforts, we must not forget the traditional markets such as the Netherlands, the UK, France, Italy, the U.S. and Canada.
If all programs are implemented in the next five years, I am confident Indonesia's tourism will flourish again.
It is also hoped that the private sector will be involved actively in all planning and policy programs.
Masyarakat Pariwisata Indonesia -- the Indonesian Tourism Society -- is continuously looking for solutions for the people of Indonesia, one of which is through the White Paper on Indonesia's Tourism. This paper has been submitted to the Minister of Culture and Tourism with a copy to the House of Representatives Commission 10. It is hoped that this paper can be used as a base for the development of tourism in Indonesia.
Note: Foreign direct arrivals via Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport for October 2004 were only 1.18 percent behind October 2000's performance -- the highest in Bali's history for foreign tourist arrivals. In all, 128,399 foreign visitors passed through Bali's airport in October 2004, an improvement of 31.8 percent over the same month last year.
Overall arrivals in the first 10 months of the year totaled 1,222,113 -- setting a new record in foreign direct arrivals and besting by 1.8 percent the 1,200,404 visitors recorded for January-October 2000.
Bali's numerical success in arrivals, however, has been purchased at a cost in quality of visitors. A dramatic shift from high-spending, long-staying European and American visitors to less lucrative regional tourists has taken place over the past three years. As a result, many hotels and tourist attractions dependent on total guest nights spent by tourists in Bali continue to suffer.
Source: Bali Discovery Tours. http://www.balidiscovery.com
The writer is the vice chairwoman of the Indonesian Tourism Society (MPI)