Tourism growing by leaps and bounds

JAKARTA (JP): Tourism will likely replace textile products as Indonesia's biggest foreign exchange earner outside oil and gas by the end of the Sixth Five Year Development Plan (Repelita VI), a senior official says.

"The rank of the tourism industry in foreign exchange earnings among the non-oil sectors steadily increased from fifth in 1985 to third in 1992," Director General of Tourism Andi Mappi Sammeng said after opening a workshop on competency-based framework for tourism education and training here yesterday.

He said that in 1998, Indonesia expects some five to 6.5 million visitors, bringing in US$8.2 to $8.9 billion in foreign exchange.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Indonesia last year gained $6.06 billion from textile exports and $5.47 billion from timber exports. The Ministry of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications said that the country gained $3.35 billion from tourism.

Andi said yesterday that in 1985, the tourism industry, with foreign exchange earnings of US$525 million, ranked fifth behind timber at $1.19 billion, rubber with $726 million, textiles at $559 million and coffee with $556 million.

The two-day workshop, aimed at getting input from Australia's experience in the tourism industry, is being attended by 50 representatives from the Ministry of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications, the Ministry of Culture and Education, tourism schools and hotel and restaurant executives.

Andi said that to reach the target by the end of Repelita VI, the tourism sector should increase its qualified human resources.

"For example, the number of visitors from Asian countries to Indonesia is growing very fast, but we have few tour guides able to speak Japanese, Korean and Mandarin Chinese," he said. (icn)