Indonesia To Develop Globally Competitive Tourism Villages

Indonesia continues to encourage the tourism sector, especially the development of globally competitive tourism villages, in a bid to boost foreign exchange earnings and national employment.

According to an official statement from the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs here on Monday, one of the efforts made was the holding of the 2022 Tourism Village Award with the theme of “Indonesia Rises” by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy.

On this occasion, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto praised all parties involved, including 3,419 tourist villages from all over Indonesia, and tourist villages that were included in the top 50 best.

“I hope that every village or region needs to look at strategic and potential sectors that can be developed or appointed to be able to provide valuable benefits and produce high productivity for regional development to improve the people’s welfare,” Hartarto affirmed.

The number of foreign tourist visits to Indonesia reached 510,246 in August 2022, which is the highest achievement in the past year.

In addition, the business field for providing accommodation and food and beverage grew 9.76 percent year on year (YoY) in the second quarter of 2022.

Thus, this achievement also has an impact on the Indonesian economy which has grown quite resilient, above five percent, over the last three quarters, accompanied by controlled inflation rates amid rising inflation in various countries.

“We are grateful that Indonesian tourism, according to the World Economic Forum, has increased rapidly. In just 18 months, Indonesia’s tourism ranking shot to number 32, from previously at number 44. For the first time, Indonesia is above Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam in the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) 2021,” he remarked.

Furthermore, Hartarto advised all parties to make the most of the tourism sector’s growth momentum.

According to the minister, all parties should continually innovate to create a tourist village with global competitiveness, so that it can attract foreign tourists and be able to compete at the global level.

“From the village for Indonesia rise up,” he remarked.

International tourist arrivals, through the main entry gates of Indonesia, reached 1.73 million during the January-August 2022 period, up 2,028.65 percent as compared to the corresponding period of 2021, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) had earlier reported.

The number of international tourist arrivals through the main entry gates during the period from January to August 2021 stood at just 81,292, BPS head Margo Yuwono noted here on Monday.

“This (increase) is easy to understand because last year, there was still a pandemic, so the number of international tourists (visits) in the same period last year was only 81,292,” he said.

Meanwhile, he noted that the number of international tourist visits in August 2022 alone had reached 510.25 thousand.

This figure reflected an increase of 6.98 percent as compared to July 2022 and showed a massive growth of 28,727.46 percent as compared to August 2021.

Despite the significant jump, the figure recorded in August 2022 was still far lower as compared to 2019, that is, before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, he pointed out.

“In the same period of 2019, the number of international tourist visits in January-August reached 8.56 million,” he explained.