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Tourism Ministry gears up for AEC
Be our guest: A tour leader waits to pick up tourists at the arrivals gate of Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar, Bali
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span class="inline inline-center">Be our guest: A tour leader waits to pick up tourists at the arrivals gate of Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar, Bali. The Tourism Ministry expects tourism players in Indonesia to benefit from the implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) this year. (Tribunnews Bali/Andriansyah)
The government has taken measures to improve tourist-sector standards to welcome the implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), a minister has said.
Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said in Jakarta on Saturday that his ministry had made preparations to welcome the advent of the AEC this year, one of which was the establishment of 28 tourist-business standards; seven had been established through a ministerial decree, while the remaining 21 standards were still being drafted, he said.
'We have also prepared 1,500 auditors to monitor tourist-business standards,' Arief said as quoted by kompas.com.
The minister added that the Tourism Ministry was currently facilitating a competency certification process for tourism workers, and was aiding the establishment of 12 professional certification institutions for the sector.
'Indonesia's tourism sector has for a while now been making preparations to welcome the implementation of the AEC, especially in terms of readiness of human resources,' said Arief.
From 2007 to 2015, he added, the ministry had issued 81,627 competency certificates to tourism workers employed in 12 tourist sub-sectors.
'[The awardees] work in various tourist businesses, such as hotels and restaurants, spas, travel agencies, as tour leaders, in the culinary sector, rafting, diving and many more,' said Arief.
The minister said he was optimistic that in the AEC era, business players in Indonesia's tourist sector could compete with their competitors from other countries, and could derive great advantage from the new community. (ebf)
