INVESTMENT IN ECO TOURISM POSTED AT RP152 BILLION

The Ministry of Forestry one of their main programs was to promote eco-tourism by inviting investors to build tourism centers. By December 2013 investment in eco-tourism was at the value of Rp152 billion, employing 1,228 workers. The Director of Environmental Services, Conserved Forest and Environment, Directorate General of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation, Ministry of Forestry Bambang Supriyono made this statement.

The number of nature tourista in 2012 was 4,686,947 people consisting of 2,651,171 local tourists and 2018,369 foreign tourists. The number of visitors to the Nusantara National Game Park came to 1,674,376 people and foreign tourism was 142,031 people.

One of the problems faced was the Game Reserve Forest were underpriced: entry tariff for visitors was too low so the cash flow could not reach break even point. In other countries including Southeast Asia entry ticket was much higher than Indonesia. For that matter the Ministry of Forestry had decided to increase tariff.

Survey disclosed that willingness to pay to enter forest conservation zone was high so increase of tariff was expected not to discourage Visitors to come. Inflation factor must also be considered.

The conservation park consisted of 527 units covering 27,190,992.91 ha of land made up of 50 national parks, 124 Natural Tourism Park 21 Grand Forest Park and 15 hunting zones.

Increased tariff to the conservation forest must also be seen from the value of object and visitors’ interest. Some conservation areas rated as of high value like the Komodo island and Kali Barat were charged with high tariff.

“Some foreign tourists wondered why entry tariff was so low, just a few Dollar cents and in their eyes the forests were amazingly wonderous. The are willing to accept high tariff as they have the purchasing power” Bambang remarked.

Today some conservation forests needed management expense up to Rp 20 billion per year while income from entry ticket was only a hundred or even tens of million Rupiah only. With increased tariff, maintenance of forests could be upgraded.

Today ticket entry for local visitors was Rp 2,500.- to be increased to Rp5,000.- to Rp20,000.- depending on location. For foreign tourists the ticket price would be increased from Rp 20,000 to Rp100,000 – Rp300,000 depending on location. Thereby State’s non-tax income would be increased to Rp1 trillion. (SS)

Business New - April 4, 2014