Study divides RI into six tourist regions

JAKARTA (JP): An expert team has prepared a proposal to divide Indonesia into six regions as an effort to endorse the development of the country's tourist industry.

The team groups experts from University of Indonesia in Jakarta, University of Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, and the Bandung Institute of Technology in West Java. The jobs of the team include data compilation and strategy formulation for the development of tourism in the next 15 to 20 years.

In a recent discussion, team member Sri Mulyani Indrawati said that the team had proposed the setting up of six major tourist areas in Sumatra, Java, Bali, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Irian Jaya.

She said that each of the areas will have one or two prime gateways and a number of secondary gateways.

"The team has also proposed tourist destinations and selected tourist products as well as target markets in each region," she said.

She said that regional tourist division in Indonesia is necessary because not all of the current tourist destinations in the country are feasible from the point of view on gateways for foreign visitors based on security, cost efficiency, supervision, service effectivity, infrastructure and accommodation availability and supporting attractions.

"We also consider that the tourist destinations are scattered in Indonesia with different qualities, and most of them have different attractions and accessibility," she said, adding that the tourist regions will be divided based on the state's regional development.

Based on the team's proposal, the Sumatra tourist area will include Medan in North Sumatra and Batam in Riau as major gateways, while Jakarta and Surabaya in East Java will be the major gateways for the Java tourist area.

The Bali tourist area will have Denpasar as the major gateway, and the Kalimantan area will have Balikpapan. The Sulawesi and Irian Jaya areas will have Manado and Biak as respective gateways.

According to Sri, among the aims of the establishment of the six major tourist regions is to direct development activities in the country.

Indonesia aims to depend on the tourist industry as its biggest foreign exchange earner by the end of the Seventh Five- Year Development Plan in 2004, while the role of the oil and gas sector decreases.

Some 11 million tourists are expected to visit the country annually by 2005, bringing in some US$15 billion in revenue, more than double from about five million tourist arrivals expected this year with revenues of some $6.7 billion. (icn)