Tourism must benefit the poor, says expert

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.