Thursday, 5 February 2015

GOVERNMENT GRAB MARINE TOURISM OPPORTUNITY



Indonesia is an archipelago consisting of thousand of islands. Many exotic islands made this country a tourist paradise of the word. Therefore marine tourism was a highly prospective business as nagnet to tourist to be develop by the Government.

Growing foreign tourist of the world coming to Indonesia was highly business potential to be developed, in would generate positive impact on hotel and restaurant business, travel agents and transportation service on land, sea and air.

To the Government, tourism was “invisible export” which would increase forex reserve. Tourist come to spend their money in Indonesia, for accommodation, meal, transportation, recreation and shopping which energized the market.

The Minister of Tourism Arif Yahya stated in Jakarta on Tuesday [9/12] the trend among tourist to go on marine tourism kept on growing. The increase was posted in premium tourist destinations in Indonesia. Some tourist destinations in Indonesia posted significant increase in the past three years. The number of visitors to Komodo Park increase by 9.42% on 2013 against 42,833 in 2011 and 45,776 in 2013.

Furthermore he disclosed that the number of foreign tourist to Raja Ampat island in West Papua increased by 56.48% in 2012 against 3,858 in 2010 and to become 6,037 in 2012. The same was posted in Wakatobi, increasing by 45.77% from 2,274 in 2011 to 3,315 in 2013. The number of tourist to Sabang increased by 17.5% from 3,932 in 2010 to 4,622 in 2013.

Arif disclosed that the potential of marine tourism in Indonesia was enormously high. With 80,000 km of coastline and 50.875 sq km of coral reefs or 18% total oiral reefs of the world Indonesia was magnet to foreign tourist of the world. Marine tourism in Indonesia was targeted to drum up 20 million visitors till 2019.

Minister Arif disclosed that development of marine tourism would be focused on development of diving and snorkeling, surfing, wind surfing, cruising, waterskiing with emphasis on environmental conservation. Development of marine tourism was in line with the Government’s commitment to develop sea toll ways in Indonesia.

RIPPARNAS had designted National Tourism Strategic zone [KSPN] based on marine, so inter-sectoral collaboration at central and provincial level would be the underlying strategy of development. Indonesia would be the heart of the world’s coral triangle consisting of the Indonesia, Malaysia, Timor Leste. The Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Solomon islands

Marine tourism was closely related to development of coastal areas encompassing development of hotels, restaurant of infra structure like marina, harbor, business center etc, It was also necessary to build beach fun, fun boats, mangrove tourism, finishing etc. (SS)

Business News - December 12, 2015

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