Tourism must benefit the poor, says expert

Sari P. Setiogi, Jakarta

The government needed to ensure its tourism policies benefited the poor, who often ended up worse off after tourism, an expert warned on Tuesday.

Gadjah Mada University's Center of Tourism Studies academic Moeljarto Tjokrowinoto said current policies on tourism mostly benefited big business -- multinational hotel chains and resorts -- leaving little or nothing for the common people.

In several tourist regions, locals were exploited by large- scale concerns that acquired their land and opened tourist businesses.

"In most cases, investors often collude with the local regimes who control the area to acquire land at cheap, below-average prices. It's effectively forcing the poor community to subsidize those who are rich," Moeljarto said in a seminar on tourism.

Tourism contributes between US$4 billion and $5 billion to the country's foreign exchange revenues annually.

Moeljarto suggested the government introduce a pro-poor tourism policy designed to empower and develop local communities.

Such a policy would aim to involve the community in the decision-making processes regarding tourism projects and would improve its access to information, said Moeljarto.

Community involvement in tourism would help foster entrepreneurship in the grassroots, Moeljarto said. Locals could be trained in management, marketing and how to raise capital to start businesses.

The government should also encourage links between tourist industry players and local goods and service suppliers, which would improve the quality, reliability and competitiveness of local products, he said.

Large-scale stakeholders in tourism would also be expected to cooperate with small businesses.

A multinational hotel chain in West Jakarta has already started cooperating with local push-cart food vendors. The hotel invited the vendors to sell their food inside the hotel and trained them to prepare their products more hygienically.

Meanwhile, United Nations Development Program assistant resident representative Iwan Gunawan said the government should focus on incentives for large-scale tourism enterprises to involve the community in their businesses.

Minister of Culture and Tourism I Gde Ardika said the government was considering options to achieve this, including tax deductions.