JAKARTA (BPN) – Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy/Tourism and Creative Economy Agency (Kemenparekraf) has estimated the decline of foreign tourists’ visit to Indonesia as an impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, as also happened in other countries.
The ministry’s spokesperson for the COVID-19 Task Force, Ari Juliano Gema, in a statement in Jakarta, Monday, explained that his party has prepared steps and strategies to anticipate the decline of foreign tourists by preparing the protocol of a new life order in the tourism sector.
The protocol will later be implemented when a region has been declared ready to receive tourists.
“President Joko Widodo has instructed not to hurry. In the recovery period, we will first focus on encouraging the mobilization of domestic tourists. Therefore, everything must be prepared first before welcoming the tourists. Indeed, by seeing the readiness of each region. We have coordinated with several regional heads whose regions are almost ready to welcome the tourists and start implementing the protocol,” Ari Juliano Gema said as cited from the ministry’s press release.
Statistics Indonesia (BPS) recorded the number of foreign tourists arriving in Indonesia in April 2020 of 160.000 people.
Compared to the number of foreign tourists visit in March 2020, the number decreased by 66.02 percent. As for when compared to the same period in 2019, then the number has decreased by 87.44 percent or as many as 1.27 million people.
In that period, the number of foreign tourists visit was dominated by tourists from East Timor that were recorded to visit by 83 thousand in April.
The number reached 52.2 percent of the total foreign tourists. Meanwhile, the rest came from Malaysia as many as 62 thousand or 39 percent, Singapore 2 thousand or 1.3 percent, and other 12 thousand visits or 7.5 percent.
This number, said Ari Juliano, has been estimated considering the steps of the Indonesian government and also the government of the contributor countries of potential foreign tourists to Indonesia who decided to close access in and out of their country to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Going forward, the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy will focus to work on the quality tourism segment which emphasizing more on the level of foreign exchange income rather than attracting mass tourists, or mass tourism, along with the changing of global tourism trends.
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