The Buzz Around "Events" Weaving Tourism

Strong tourism is not the busiest, but the most impactful

Mataram (ANTARA) - The roar of applause, traditional music blending with the crash of waves, and rows of UMKM stalls crowded with visitors form a recurring scene across various corners of West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) throughout the year.

Tourism in this region is no longer just about beaches and mountains, but about events. About moments deliberately created to get people to come, stay, and spend on experiences.

2026 marks a crucial chapter. A total of 69 tourism agendas are being prepared in a full calendar, spread across all regencies and cities. This number is not merely a list of activities. It is a strategy.

Amid the ambitious target of more than 2.55 million tourist visits, events become the main driving engine expected to keep the rhythm of visits stable throughout the year.

However, behind that optimism, a fundamental question arises. Does the abundance of events automatically guarantee evenly distributed economic impacts? Or does it only create temporary crowds without clear sustainability?

Event Explosion

The policy of increasing the number of tourism agendas is not without reason. Previous experiences show that events have an instant effect on economic movement.

For example, a national-scale recreational sports event in 2025 was able to create a money circulation of up to Rp130 billion. Hotel occupancy rates surged dramatically, even approaching full in a short time. Sea and land transportation also received a boost.

From this, the logic built becomes simple. The more events, the greater the opportunity for the economy to move. Thus, a quantitative approach was born by presenting dozens of agendas in one calendar year.

Four of them even entered national curation through the Kharisma Event Nusantara programme. This is an indicator that the quality of events in NTB is starting to be recognised at the central level. However, the dominance of numbers still leaves room for evaluation.

Because in practice, not all events have the same appeal. Some can attract cross-country tourists, but others only serve local consumption. This disparity often escapes attention because the focus is still on quantity, not impact.

On the other hand, global dynamics also add pressure. Geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East region are impacting the decline in tourists from Europe and surrounding areas. A decline of around 11 percent from certain regions is a signal that the tourism market is very vulnerable to external factors.

This situation forces the local government to shift strategies by targeting closer markets such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia. This step is realistic, but it also shows that events cannot stand alone without an adaptive market strategy.

Real Impacts