Jakarta, Nov 20 (Antara) - Inaugurated by Tourism Minister Arief Yahya on Thursday, the four-day Lake Toba Festival 2015 is expected to attract at least one thousand foreign tourists and 55 thousand local visitors to North Sumatra's lake resort.
"The festival is expected to further promote Lake Toba at the international level to boost foreign tourist arrivals. The annual number of foreign tourists arriving at Lake Toba has so far been recorded at 200 thousand," Tourism Service Head of North Sumatra Elisa Marbun stated on Monday.
Marbun noted that the Lake Toba festival's implementation this year is expected to increase the number of foreign tourists visiting North Sumatra in 2016.
Moreover, the festival this year is being held in Berastagi, Karo District, which is well known for its beautiful panoramas, including scenic mountainous landscapes as well as vegetable and fruit gardens.
Traditionally, seven districts around the strategic area of Lake Toba take turns to host the festival. After the Toba Samosir District hosted the event in 2014, it is now (2015), Karo District's turn to organize it, Ikrimah Hamidi, a member of the North Sumatra Legislative Assembly (DPRD), stated last week.
Organized in the fruit market area of Berastagi in Karo District, the Lake Toba Festival 2015 is being attended by 16 districts/municipalities of North Sumatra Province.
At the opening of the festival, Elisa Marbun, in his capacity as chief organizer of the event, remarked that 16 districts/municipalities are participating in the festival. Some of the participants came from the seven districts located in the surrounding areas of Lake Toba: Karo, Samosir, North Tapanuli, Dairi, Toba Samosir, Humbanghasundutan, and West Pakpa.
The participants also came from Central Tapanuli, Sibolga, Batubara, Binjai, Langkat, Serdang Bedagai, Padang Sidempuan, Labuhan Batu, and North Labuhan Batu.
Participants from outside North Sumatra, such as the provinces of Central Kalimantan, Bangka Belitung, and Papua are also attending the event.
During the event, which will last until November 22, 2015, the organizers will showcase the various tourism potentials and cultural attractions of North Sumatra.
The activities held during the festival will include a traditional Batak "ulos" cloth carnival, decoration contest, cultural arts attraction, ethnic fashion show, exhibition, seminar, geopark photo contest, solu bolon boat contest, swimming competition, choirs, and other traditional festivals.
In 2014, the Lake Toba Festival was held on September 17-21. During last year's festival, a 500-meter woven "ulos" cloth was displayed. Ulos is the traditional cloth of the Batak people of North Sumatra. Different types of ulos have different ceremonial significance.
Marbun said all the activities held during the Lake Toba Festival are aimed at preserving the art and cultural heritage of the Batak people living around Lake Toba. They are preserved as the cultural wealth for the future generations of the Batak people.
The festival is an event to promote various cultures, culinary arts, and creative economic products of North Sumatra, particularly from around Lake Toba.
Thus, the festival, which is being organized with funding from North Sumatra's regional budget and the state budget of the Tourism Ministry, is aimed at increasing the number of foreign tourist arrivals to Lake Toba.
Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said his ministry had prepared a budget for the implementation of the Toba Lake Festival.
He affirmed that the central government had designated Toba Lake as the icon of North Sumatra's tourism. He said the budget for the festival was set at Rp2 billion, while the regional governments around the lake should provide the necessary support.
The minister noted that Lake Toba is one of the 10 main tourist destinations whose development is being prioritized by the government.
"Lake Toba is the pride of Indonesia as it combines beautiful panoramas and the lake's coastal culture," the minister noted on Thursday.
The ten destinations are Lake Toba in North Sumatra, Mandalika in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), Morotai in North Maluku, and Tanjung Lesung in Banten, in addition to Labuan Bajo in NTB, the Seribu Islands in Jakarta, and Bromo Tengger Semeru in East Java. Wakatobi in Southeast Sulawesi, the Balitung Island, and Yogyakarta are also on the list.
Since 2013, the government has designated the Lake Toba festival as part of the national tourism agenda.
Head of North Sumatra's Tourism Service Elisa Marbun remarked that the Lake Toba Festival is expected to become the main driver for developing North Sumatra's tourism to attract foreign visitors.
North Sumatra has set a target to attract 270 thousand foreign tourists in 2015. It hopes that the target would be achieved, although the number of arrivals until June this year was recorded at 116,795, or less than 50 percent of the set target, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS).
According to Wikipedia, Lake Toba is a large natural lake occupying the caldera of a supervolcano. The lake is some 100 kilometers long, 30 kilometers wide, and has a depth of up to 505 meters, or 1,666 feet.
Located in the middle of the northern part of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, with a surface elevation of about 900 meters, or 2,953 feet, the lake is the largest in Indonesia and also the largest volcanic lake in the world.
Lake Toba was the site of a massive super volcanic eruption, estimated at VEI 8, which occurred 69 thousand to 77 thousand years ago, representing a climate-changing event.
It was the largest known explosive eruption on Earth in the last 25 million years.
***1***A014/INE/B003)EDITED BY INE(T.A014/A/BESSR/Bustanuddin) 20-11-2015 19:36:2 |
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