|
Tourism industry in Indonesia has placed itself as an important economic sector in speeding up the national sustainable development, though this sector was in fact put into the Guidelines of State Policy only in 1978 or during the implementation of the Second Five-Year Development Plan. Foreign exchange the industry had brought in proved swelling from one year to another to turn much more significant contribution to the economy. This has been in parallel with the industry's expanding contribution to the opening of business opportunities to accommodate more and more labors to work in.
In dealing with such tourist industrial development, various policies, measures and steps necessary have been introduced, put into practice and implemented appropriately to the developments of the industry. Having been regarded as a cultural based development activity during its initial stage, the industry later on has turned to be one of important economic sectors of foreign exchange earner.
Matras beach in Bangka Island, Bangka-Belitung Province |
However, it has been proved that the policy which stresses more on foreign exchange drive has gained, in one hand, much more foreign exchange earnings, but on the other hand has caused rather unfavorable impact to natural resources and culture. Thus, as of 1999 tourism concept has been regarded as part of socio-cultural development program. The 1999-2004 Guidelines of State Policy affirms that tourism industry needs to be developed through a comprehensive and integrated approach system, inter-discipline and participative in character, by using economic, technical, agronomic, socio-cultural, energy thrifty, natural resource preservative and environment friendly criteria. Furthermore, relevant regulations ascertain that tourism development should be based on the potency of socio-cultural diversity, arts, and natural beauties. The development should certainly take into account the aspects of good governance, decentralization, human resources and community-based tourism development.
The long-term goals of tourism development are: sustainable development of national tourism industry; and Indonesia as a comfortable, attractive tourist destination having high competitive edge, with its natural beauties and culture to rely on. While the short-term target is the recovery of the country's tourism image in international market. The country's image was plunged to negative due to terrorist attacks in Kuta, Bali, and to the J.M. Marriott, as well as the latest attack in Kuningan area both in Jakarta.
Targets to be achieved in the field of tourism industry in 2004 are, among other things, the 7-percent to 10-percent growth of foreign arrivals and the 1.9 percent growth of domestic tourists; foreign exchange earning of US$7.6 billion at the end of 2004, and domestic tourists' expenses of Rp16.97 trillion.
In relation with the targets to achieve, it certainly should strive to make the products of tourism industry more improved, both in term of quality and quantity, that in turn they would offer more contribution to the expansion of job opportunities and improvement of community's income. In addition, it also strives to lure more domestic as well as foreign tourists to outer islands of Java and Bali.
In connection with efforts to lure more tourists, domestic and foreign ones, promotional schemes and marketing's have been launched. To encourage domestic tourism promotion it has been launched the "Gebyar Wisata Nusantara" (Archipelago Tourism Glitter) scheme with the theme: "Come on Exploring the Archipelago". For overseas promotional scheme, the new theme is: "Indonesia, Ultimate in Diversity", by promoting Indonesia as the most varied destination anywhere'. Promotional marketing has been done not only through participation in various tourism bourses at home and overseas (the International Tourism-Milan Bourse, the International Tourism Bourse-ITB Berlin, etc), but also through advertisement via mass-media, including world's well known TV stations such as CNN, CNBC, and BBC and world's leading magazines such as the Time Asia, TTG Asia, Travel Weekly East etc., and other promotional forms.
VISA POLICY
As of February 1, 2004 Indonesia has started implementing the Visa-on-Arrival (VoA) policy. The Pay-on-Arrival Visa is required of visitors from 21 countries. These countries are the United States, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirate, and Taiwan. While tourists from countries offering visa-free facilities to Indonesians, such as Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, the Philippines, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Macao Special Administrative Region, Chile, Morocco, Peru, and Vietnam, remain to enjoy a reciprocal policy by the Indonesian Government.
The new policy also shortens the length of stay of tourists able to continue availing of the free-visa facility from 60 days to 30 days. The new pay-on-arrival visa allows visitors to stay for 30 days. A foreign tourist has to pay US$25 for a 30-day visit and just US$10 for a three-day visit.
For more information regarding visa application, please click here.
OVERSEAS COOPERATION
In promoting tourism industry, the Government has endeavored various efforts, including maintaining cooperation with other governments such as in sub-regional cooperation, namely the Indonesia-Malaysia Singapore Growth Triangle (IM-GT), the Indonesia Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT), Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia Malaysia-the Philippine-East ASEAN Growth Area, and bilateral cooperation among other things with Japan, Thailand, Algeria, Tajikistan, and Poland, as well as with world organizations such as the UN-ESCAP, WTO, UNICEF, UNESCO, ASEAN and APEC, Tourism Working Group and Japan ASEAN Centre.
In its role within the international fora, Indonesia has been appointed as member of Executive Council of the World's Tourism Organization (WTO) for the period of 2003-2007, and member of Committee for the WTO's 2003-2005 Program. The appointment was made during the 15th WTO Meeting held in Beijing in October 2003. During the meeting it was also designated Prof DR. Emil Salim of Indonesia as member of the world committee on Tourism Ethics.
FOREIGN ARRIVALS
The number of foreign tourists visiting Indonesia in 2003 was only 4.428 million, decreasing by 12.02 percent from that of 2002, which totaled 5.03 million. The decrease of the number was followed by the reduce of their length of stay from 9.79 days in 2002 to 9.69 days in 2003. The shrink of tourists' number and their length of stay had in fact diminished the earning of foreign exchange from US$4.3 billion in 2002 to US$4.0 billion in 2003.
In June 2004 the number of foreign arrivals reached 407.9 thousand, growing by 10.51 percent compared to that of previous month, which numbered 369.1 thousand. At the same time, the number of foreign tourists visiting Bali noted a growing trend from 123.0 thousand in May 2004 to 137.3 thousand in June 2004. Cumulatively, the number of foreign tourists visiting Indonesia during the first quarter of 2004 was 2.13 million, increasing by 34.64 percent compared to that of the corresponding period in 2003.
|
