Brilio.net/en - Recently, the President of Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo or famous as Jokowi, had asked the Minister of Tourism to fasten the growth in tourism by developing ten new priority tourism destinations, which are in Borobudur in Central Java, Mandalika in Lombok Island, Labuan Bajo in Flores Island, NTT, Bromo-Tengger-Semeru in East Java, the Thousand Islands in North Jakarta, Toba Lake in North Sumatra, Wakatobi in Southeast Sulawesi, Tanjung Lesung in West Java, Morotai in north of Halmahera in Maluku islands, and Tanjung Kelayang in Belitung, Sumatra.
It seems like the President wants to distribute development and tourism across the country and these destinations mentioned above indeed have mesmerizing natural sceneries, only lack of maintenance and conservation. Now that these spots have caught the concern of the President, Indonesia will soon have more options for holiday destinations.
The Minister of Tourism, Arief Yahya, said the development of these new tourism would be as if creating ten new Bali-like destinations. Imagine how much is the target if we get ten million from the developments with 10 million of tourists. So its around USD 10 billion in the next four years. This could be our biggest legacy in the tourism to create these ten new Bali, Yahya said to reporters after the closed meeting in the Presidents office in Jakarta, Tuesday (2/2) afternoon.
The closed meeting established that Toba Lake would be a new main destination with international standard. Therefore a new critical issue appears, namely the multi management for single destination. Attending the closed meeting was the President, Jakarta Governor and five regents to represent seven regents. They all agreed to have Toba Lake to have integrated management. Toba Lake National Tourism Destination Authority Board will be established for that.
The Minister also said that the tourist target for Toba Lake would be increased from 250-270 thousands to 1 million people per year. It means we can get IDR 1 billion dollars from foreign tourists, he described.
As for the investment needed for the development of new destination in Toba Lake, the Minister explained that the first phase of investment is projected to IDR 20 trillion (around USD 1.4 billion). We are hoping to get IDR 10 trillion both from public and government investors. The rest IDR 10 trillion is hoped to get from private industry, both from foreign investors and domestic investors.