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Quality first, numbers second: Stakeholders discuss tourism development in 2020
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo initially aimed for 20 million tourist arrivals in 2019, which he later revised to 18 million.
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Tourists marvel at the beauty of Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in East Java (JP/Nedi Putra AW)
T
ourism stakeholders are urging the authorities to look beyond tourist arrival targets and focus on improving infrastructure and sustainability to promote quality tourism as the country has fared worse compared to several neighboring countries, according to a recent survey.
The head of Gadjah Mada University’s Master’s and doctoral programs in tourism studies, Muhammad Baiquni, said the government had put too much effort into attaining targets while paying less attention to quality tourism development along the way.
“We [need] to go pursue quality and sustainability, which will lure [tourists] to come [to Indonesia]. But if we chase after figures, what we offer will lack in quality. [Thus] the quantity [target] will be unachieved,” said Baiquni.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo initially aimed for 20 million tourist arrivals in 2019, which he later revised to 18 million, a number that would not likely be achieved as tourist arrivals hit 14.92 million between January and November last year, according to Statistics Indonesia (BPS).
BPS head Suhariyanto estimated that the total number of tourists in 2019 would likely be from 16.1 million to 16.3 million. That would be the fourth consecutive year of Indonesia failing to meet its tourism targets since 2016.
Jokowi said he wanted to focus on tourism as a new engine of economic growth, especially for more equitable development in the regions, and with the trade war hitting commodity prices and manufacturing industries, the conventional sources of economic growth for Indonesia, hard.
