Improving Local Economy by Tourism

Indonesia is a big country that outstretches from Sabang until Merauke. This country has a lot of the wealth either it has been well-known or it is still hidden. Its culture and amazing nature have made Indonesia as the main attraction for the foreign and domestic tourists to visit and explore Indonesia. Based on http://www.tradingeconomics.com/indonesia/tourist-arrivals (2017), it is stated that tourist arrivals in Indonesia increased by 29.04 year-on-year to 900,793 persons in January of 2017, compared to 698,057 in the same month a year earlier. 

Bali was the main destination (452,660), followed by Jakarta (189,242) and Batam (129,728). From the data above, it proves that Indonesia has a potential in the tourism sector. This sector can be relied on because tourism has good prospect in the future if it’s well managed and it will bring benefits in Indonesia economy and helps the advancement of local economy.

Recently, Indonesian government has pushed the tourism sector, especially about rural tourism as the alternative way to increase the economy of this country. This is an opportunity for the region to encourage the local economy. Actually, every region has authority to manage their assets by themselves, because the local governments are required to be independent in its budget increasing to the development of the region itself. And developing an area become a tourist destination is one of many ways to manage the region assets that can add the regional budgets.

Then, how can tourism improve the local economy? First, by increasing the regional revenues. Every region must manage their assets by themselves in order to increase the regional revenue because regional revenue can be one of the indicators in the increase of local economy. And tourism can take a part to contribute to the increase of regional revenue by taxes and retributions which come from business activities that occur in the tourist destination such as from hotels, restaurants, transportation and tour guide, parking, ticketing, and many mores. Beside that, from those business activities, tourism also will require many people to involve, automatically there will be worker absorption, so, it will reduce the number of unemployment especially unemployment in the local people. 

Data from tourism ministry reported that increasing the amount of labors in the tourism sector in 2015 is 18% (Biro Perencanaan dan Keuangan Sekretariat Kementrian Pariwisata, 2016). Parts of the local people also can run business although it is a small business such as just selling snacks or beverages on the spot or offering some services such as umbrella rent, massage, or photographing, and so on, it will add the local people revenues.

One of regions that depicts the influence of tourism on economy improvement is Batu City, East Java. Batu City is the main tourist destination in East Java because it has potential tourist destinations that are well-known such as Jawa Timur Park, Batu Night Spectacular, Batu Secret Zoo, Agro Tourism, Fruit Garden, Songgoriti Temple, and many more. The geographic condition of Batu City itself brings advantages for Batu City as a tourist attraction. Therefore, most of the Batu City’s APBD are from tourism sector. And it gives highest contribution for Batu City’s PDRB from trading, hotels, restaurants, and services (Luthfi, 2013). The presence of Batu City tourism encourages the emergence of local business, absorbs the labors, and increase the prosperity of the city.

The other example comes from Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta is the other one region that has many tourist destinations also tourism villages as center of creative industries. One of its example is Kasongan Creative Industry. Kasongan Creative Industry is a tourism village that produces earthenware vessels. Kasongan industries also bring the positive impacts of the local economy on worker absorption, business opportunities, and the improvement of the local income (Prihartono & Hasan, 2016).

The local economy is important to rise in order to increase the local society prosperity. Developing tourism is one of the government’s efforts in increasing the economy. However, government’s role and coordination are highly needed. The government must develop continuously the tourist destinations by improving and advancing the facilities and infrastructures which have existed and adding the facilities and infrastructures that needed. The government also must be able to take the opportunity and make the strategies to attract tourists to visit. 

Furthermore, promoting tourist destinations is an important element in increasing the amount of tourists. The wider the promotion range of a tourist destination, the more people will know about it, and the more people who want to visit it. And if the tourist arrival increases, the revenue will increase, therefore the local economy also will improve. In note, all of the involved parties must coordinate each other to create attractive tourist destination. Thus, tourism sector will bring the positive influences not only for local economy, but also economy in this state.

 References
 Biro Perencanaan dan Keuangan Sekretariat Kementrian Pariwisata. (2016). Laporan Akuntabilitas Kinerja Kementrian Pariwisata Tahun 2015. Jakarta: Kementrian Pariwisata.

Indonesia Tourist Arrivals. (2007, March 1). Retrieved from Trading Economics