Indonesian Senior Statesman Makes a Critical Appraisal the Development of National Tourism.
(1/25/2010) Anak Agung Gde Agung is one of Indonesia’s most distinguished and well-informed senior statesmen. He is a graduate of Harvard and Leiden universities. He as attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in the United States and served in the manner that social services churchman during the administration of President Abdurrahman Wahid.
The following article is reprinted from The Jakarta Post.
Indonesian Tourism – a National Tragedy
Government officials at all levels lay claim to that Indonesia’s tourism is doing well, with each year seeing robust advancements. On the contrary, however, all the data point out how dismally Indonesia’s tourism has done this gone decade.
In the last 12 years to 2007, tourist numbers fluctuated between 4 million and 5 million visitors. The average length of interruption has declined, from 10 days in 1997 to poorly 8.5 days in 2008. Worst yet is how Indonesia compares with neighboring Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, that last year attracted 10 million, 15 the masses and 22 million visitors respectively.
How can such a huge discrepancy come into view? How is it that Indonesia, brimming with such wealth in culture and natural symmetry, attracts only a quarter of the tourists that basically barren Malaysia does?
This tragedy seems to have its source in the early 1980s, then Indonesia, strapped for funds, pointed to already world-famous Bali as its tourist cash cow. Since then, little has changed. As a accrue, Indonesia’s tourist attractiveness has been practically limited to Bali, through devastating consequences. Tourists overflow in quantum leaps to Bali, creating an explosion of infrastructure requirements that visibly erode the natural environment.
The over-concentration of tourists in Bali has not only brought an unmanageable overflow of visitors to the island – often the wrong types who cannot appreciate the sole local culture and natural environment – but has likewise led to an utter neglect of the other manifold equally attractive tourist spots throughout the archipelago.
Fabulous sites of the like kind as Borobudur, Yogyakarta, Toraja, Bunaken and Ujung Kulon, for instance, have been practically left overlooked. Such complacency has a high price, as can been seen from the destructive erosion that the overcrowding of tourists has brought to Bali’s culture and environment, and by what mode it has stagnated Indonesia’s other richly diverse tourist destinations.
How bad have these other destinations stagnated? Here are a few horrifying statistics:
Borobudur, that World Cultural Heritage icon, was only able to muster about 85,000 foreign tourists last year, compared to more than 1 million by the agency of the more recently discovered Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
Toraja these last few years has only attracted an average of about 5,000 overseas tourists a year.
Bunaken averaged only about 10,000 foreign visitors a year for as long as one can remember, versus more than 4 million for the like Pattaya in Thailand.
Ujung Kulon, with its rare one-horned rhino, can only claim an average of 6,000 combined domestic and alien tourists a year.
A fast recovery is imperative here and the condition instead of this is a perfect change in mind-set. The first methodize of the appointed time is for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to declare tourism a national priority and for central and regional authorities for example well because the government and the private sector to work indicator in hand in this essay. This indispensably to be followed by a preliminary phase of quick-win activities rejuvenating tourist destinations that have so far languished but need only small improvements to boost them back.
Borobudur, for instance, be able to be brought remote to full splendor by relocating the street vendors who have been encroaching on the temple grounds and harassed visitors from fully enjoying this beautiful temple/monastery. Toraja can also attract far more tourists by repairing its forsaken airfield so that visitors can arrive there within 45 minutes from Makassar and avoid the dangerous 10-hour journey through steep mountains.
As for Ujung Kulon, tourist numbers can easily rise to more than a million there within a very short time if regular and trusty sea transportation is made available from Jakarta. There are other fabulous places besides those mentioned above commonly suffering from lack of mindfulness, such as Mount Bromo, Yogyakarta and Komodo Island, which only need small touches to turn them quickly into major tourist destinations while easing the pressure on overcrowded Bali.
The quick-win phase should be followed by a longer-term buildup of other tourist sites nationwide, which desire require more infrastructure investment to put them adhering the travel map. These sites are currently still relatively unfamiliar places, but have the potential to offer inherently peculiar attractions and help sustain the long-term development of Indonesia’s tourist industry.
Such places include Trowulan and Kota Gede for historical interests, Banda Naira and Raja Ampat for spectacular surfing, and the Baliem Valley and Waikabubak since unparalleled ethnic experiences. There are many other such tourist sites and they can have being offered in clusters of similar attractions to figure the trip for tourists richer and more diverse.
Both for the sake of the period of the quick-win and long-term phases, the tourism redemption effort has to have being supported by appropriately directed promotional campaigns with a common national branding. Malaysia has its “Truly Asia”, India its “Incredible” claim under which circumstances Singapore and Thailand have particularly dubbed themselves “Uniquely Singapore” and “Amazing Thailand”. Branding is important to position the country concerned at the most honorable position of mind of would-be tourists while also filtering the seemly tourists who can appreciate what that rough offers.
Increased arrivals of tourists, who show their appreciation of the topical specialties, will make the limited people proud of their estate and motivate them to strengthen it further, which in agitate will bring even more like-minded tourists. This will result in an upward spiral of tourists and local people hand in hand strengthening the traditional inheritance of the tract.
A successful tourism program can have many priceless benefits for Indonesia, including making it the most diverse tourist destination in the creation, providing it with a sustainable and environmentally clean source of revenue larger than any of its present ones, and bringing overall prosperity to the people throughout the archipelago (and not just Bali) through grassroots empowerment and self-sustenance.
These are huge potentials that Indonesia should try its best to realize, as the rewards for their successes are just too important to forgo.
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