Jakarta, Oct 2 (Antara) - West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) Province is eager to attract as many foreign tourists as possible through its halal tourism program.
Being one of the 10 regions the government is developing as halal tourism destination regions, NTB is therefore setting sights on the International Monetary Fund-World Bank (IMF-WB) annual meeting in Bali to promote halal tourism.
The IMF-WB annual meetings, which will take place in Nusa Dua Bali from Oct 8 to 14 and will be attended by around 17,000 invitees from 189 countries, are potential forums for NTB to promote its tourism, particularly delegates who come from countries grouped in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
Many of the delegates are also expected to take the opportunity to bring members of their families to holiday in Bali and other places in Indonesia.
NTB is one of the 10 provinces being developed as halal tourist destination regions, which comprise six provinces or special regions in Java (Banten, Jakarta, West Java, and Central Java, in addition to Yogyakarta and East Java), two in Sumatra (West Sumatra and Aceh), one in Kalimantan (South Kalimantan) and one in Nusa Tenggara (West Nusa Tenggara/NTB).
Amid Indonesia's intensive promotion over the development of halal tourism, NTB is doing its best to attract tourists from Muslim nations, particularly countries in the Middle East.
After all, Indonesia has won three awards as the world halal tourism destination at the World Travel Awards 2015 event held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The winners of the World Halal Travel Awards 2015 were announced at a gala dinner in Abu Dhabi on October 20, 2015, in conjunction with the World Halal Travel Summit 2015.
Hence, as part of the efforts, Bank Indonesia (BI) will invite delegates of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at the IMF-WB meetings to Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara province (NTB).
"We will invite some 150 IMF-WB meeting delegates of OIC member countries and domestic, as well as foreign journalists to attend a seminar on halal tourism in NTB. We will introduce NTB's halal tourism and show them the beauty of Lombok Island," said Head of BI for NTB Achris Sarwani here on Monday.
The seminar will be held in the Special Economic Zone (KEK) of Mandalaika in Lombok Tengah District on October 15. The selection of the location is part of the efforts to promote Lombok tourism after the earthquake, especially in the southern regions, which are not affected by the earthquake's impact.
The endeavor to invite OIC members and foreign and national media journalists has been coordinated with the national committee and the NTB Provincial Government, and in this case, the Tourism Office.
"The confirmation of the seminar participants is indeed not final because participants of the IMF-World Bank meeting will arrive in Bali on October 6. But we believe they will come to Lombok after being officially invited," Achris said.
Those who are ready to go to Lombok, he said, will be transported from Bali by speedboat to the Senggigi tourist area, West Lombok Regency, on October 14, and return to Bali on October 15.
With the promotion of halal tourism, NTB is expected to help rekindle the decreasing number of foreign tourist arrivals in the country.
The Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) said the number of visits by foreign tourists to Indonesia dropped slightly by 1.93 percent to 1.51 million in August from the month before.
"The sharpest decline in arrivals was 69.18 percent at the International Airport of Lombok, followed by the international airport of Ngurah Rai of Bali, down 8.37 percent," head of the BPS Kecuk Suhariyanto said here on Monday.
The steep fall in the number of tourist arrivals at the Lombok airport was attributable to repeated major earthquakes hitting Lombok in August causing the loss of more than 500 lives.
A high increase was recorded at the international airport of Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin of Palembang, up 90.97 percent attributable to the 18th Asian Games held in the South Sumatra capital. In the first eight months of 2018, the number of visits by foreign tourists to Indonesia reached 10.58 million or an increase of 12.30 percent from 9.42 million in the same period in the previous year.
The number of visits in August 2018 rose 8.44 percent to 1.51 million from 1.39 million in the same month in 2017. The visitors came mainly from China, Malaysia, Timor Leste, Singapore and Australia.
Meanwhile the occupancy rate of star-rated hotels in Indonesia averaged 60.01 percent in August 2018, up from 58 percent in the same month last year.
The occupancy rate in August this year was 0.71 percent point higher than in July.
Tourism Minister Arief Yahya has set the target of tourist arrivals for 2019 at 20 million. This is not only the task of the Tourism Ministry, but is also the target for all of us to successfully achieve. The Finance Ministry will support it through the various channel policies we have. All financial instruments and policies are directed toward supporting tourism.
"Through such support, the service sector will grow rapidly and serve as a main foreign exchange earner to strengthen the country's trade balance," she said.
"For its part, the development of 10 priority tourist destinations that President Joko Widodo has mandated to meet the target of 20 million tourist arrivals in 2019 must receive multidimensional support from the government and the private sector," Finance Minister Sri Mulyani said late last month.
To support the development of 10 priority tourist destinations, four of which have been chosen as super priority destinations, including Lake Danau, Mandalika, Labuan Bajo, and Borobudur Temple needs Rp500 trillion in investment, which will mostly come from the private sector, she said.
"On the accessibility side, the government, through technical agencies, has built roads, railway tracks, airports, seaports, clean water facilities, power plants and telecommunication networks," she noted.
The government was able to meet its targets of 10 million in 2015 and 12 million in 2016. Yet, in 2017 the arrivals of foreign tourists in the country were recorded at only 14.04 million, lower than the targeted 15 million.
This year, the government must work all out to reach its target of 17 million foreign tourist arrivals and its target of 20 million arrivals next year.***3***
(A014/INE) EDITED BY INE (T.A014/A/BESSR/A. Abdussalam) 03-10-2018 0 |
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