Jakarta, Sept 12 (Antara) - The office of the coordinating minister for maritime affairs is responsible for the agenda to boost economic activities in the tourism sector in the coming five years.
One of Indonesia's interesting tourist destinations is Lake Toba in Samosir District, North Sumatra. In order to further promote tourism, the local government has plans to organize another Lake Toba Festival, after it sponsored this festival over the past few years.
Samosir District Head Mangindar Simbolon said recently that the local government had been entrusted to organize another Lake Toba Festival. The plan was developed following a meeting between the local government and the Ministry of Tourism.
Simbolon said, in organizing the festival, which was initially scheduled for mid-September, his government would consistently adopt a theme which promotes various cultural and tourism potentials of Lake Toba.
However, the plan still faced uncertainty due to funding issues. The Samosir District government, which is the host of the event, has not prepared a budget for the festival.
After holding a meeting with the North Sumatra's Regional Legislative Assembly (DPRD) on Monday, Acting North Sumatra Governor HT Erry Nuradi said he had received information about the uncertain implementation of the festival.
He noted that he had directly checked with the Samosir District head, Mangindar Simbolon.
"The district head said the holding of the festival is still uncertain," the acting governor said.
Nuradi stated that the Ministry of Tourism and the provincial government had set aside a fund for holding the Lake Tobe Festival.
However, the Samosir local government, in its capacity as the host of the festival, should also set aside a budget for the event.
According to the acting governor, the provincial government has not yet decided whether the festival has been only delayed, or cancelled.
For the provincial government, he said, Lake Toba Festival is a very useful event in promoting tourism, noting that the region has been designated as a national strategic tourism area.
"We are still waiting for the availability of a regional budget from Samosir District, as the host of the festival," the North Sumatra acting governor said.
The Central Government has set aside Rp2 billion to finance Lake Toba Festival, while the district governments around Lake Toba should also provide support.
"We heard that the Central Government will provide Rp2 billion for financing the activities, such as promotional activities and others. Since 2013, it has been decided that the Lake Toba Festival would be included in the national tourism agenda," said Mangindar Simbolon in Medan on Thursday (Sept. 3).
Because it has been included in the national agenda, the district and provincial governments will only act as supportive parties, he said.
The Samosir district is not yet able to provide details on the schedule of the Lake Toba Festival, which will be jointly organized by the district governments around Lake Toba.
He said that the plan to hold the festival is being discussed, as it would likely be postponed from September to November 2015.
"The festival this year has been postponed due to technical matters in preparations by the central government. It is only a transitional matter and would remain to become routine as an annual tourism agenda held every September," he said.
In 2014, Lake Toba Festival was held from 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 kinds of ulos have different ceremonial significance.
Lake Tobe, according to Wikipedia, is a large natural lake occupying the caldera of a super-volcano. The lake is some 100 kilometres long, 30 kilometres wide, and up to 505 meters (1,666 ft) deep.
Located in the middle of the northern part of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, with a surface elevation of about 900 meters (2,953 ft), the lake is the largest lake 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, that occurred 69,000 to 77,000 years ago, representing a climate-changing event.
It was the largest known explosive eruption on Earth in the last 25 million years.
Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said earlier in North Sumatra that his ministry had prepared a budget for the promotion of Lake Toba¿s festival.
He added that the central government has designated Lake Toba as a national tourism event for North Sumatra.
The minister explained that the promotional budget was managed by his ministry and is allocated for media communications at home and abroad.
Meanwhile, Head of North Sumatra's Tourism Service, Elisa Marbun, said Lake Toba Festival is expected to become a main driver of North Sumatra's tourism development to attract foreign tourists.
North Sumatra has set a foreign tourist arrival target of 270,000 in 2015. North Sumatra hopes that the target would be achieved, even though the number of arrivals up to June this year, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS), was 116,795, or less than 50 percent expected arrivals.***1***(T.a014/INE/o001)
(T.A014/A/BESSR/O. Tamindael) 12-09-2015 14:00:4 |
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar