Among the programs was the use of influencers to promote tourism, which cost the ministry Rp 72 billion, incentives for tourism players, budget reallocation, the launch of Indonesia Care, which provides a guideline for safe travel during the pandemic, the publication of the book Hotel Health Protocols for Medical Personnel and the Book Now Travel Later scheme.

Unfortunately, the programs have not significantly helped Indonesian tourism survive, if not recover. Based on the latest data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the number of tourist arrivals dropped sharply last year due to the pandemic, from normally 800,000-1 million in February and March to only 400,000. As the pandemic worsened, the figure fell to 150,000-160,000 per month between April and October.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo expects tourism to cushion the dwindling economy by instructing the tourism ministry to move quickly in preparing super priority destinations. The preparations include infrastructure, from the upstream to the downstream, arts and cultural events and human resources capable of organizing and managing them, and so on.

Of immediate importance is the calendar of events (COE) for each destination, especially the five super priority destinations, namely Lake Toba, Likupang, Borobudur, Mandalika and Labuan Bajo. The COE is a relatively instant solution, with a focus on the five super priority tourist destinations.

The foundation of the Indonesian COE was actually prepared and promoted in a large-scale during the term of Arief Yahya as tourism minister in 2014-2019. Then, hundreds of the best events across 34 provinces were prepared. They were divided into festivals and cultural events, entertainment events, and sporting events of the highest quality through very strict curation by experts. Unfortunately, when the pandemic struck, mitigation efforts did not work. Changing the format of the events became a challenge and almost all of these events had to be canceled.

It is quite obvious that our tourist industry prioritizes quantity, such as foreign exchange revenue, job opportunities, tourist arrivals and so on, while the qualitative aspects, which can be seen from positive changes in the quality of human resources, tend to be ignored. For quality events with high attractiveness such as Tomorrow Land or Coachella, competent, high-quality human resources are imperative.

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