JAKARTA – The Regional Legislation Affairs Committee (BULD) of Indonesian Regional Representative Council (DPD RI) said regional tourism policies need to be encouraged for equitable distribution of business opportunities and benefits and be able to face the challenges of local, national, and global life changes.
This was conveyed by Vice Chairwoman of BULD DPD RI Lily Salurapa at the Public Hearing in Mataram Room, Building B, 2nd Floor, Parliament Complex, Senayan, Jakarta, Wednesday (29/5).
The availability of adequate infrastructure, according to her, is an important factor that needs to be considered for the progress of a tourist area.
Environmental cleanliness, availability of representative public facilities, and a comfortable social environment should be a concern of the Regional Government.
“Most tourists visiting areas in Indonesia still lack infrastructure facilities. This can be seen from the access to tourist attractions and the lack of attention to the cleanliness of toilets, facilities, and other supporting infrastructure,” said Lily.
Meanwhile, tourism expert from Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI) Bandung Galih Kusumah assessed that the obstacle to the implementation of national tourism policy in Indonesia lies in the existence of competition between government agencies.
“Competition between government institutions occurs because there are similar/identical programmes between two different government institutions, so they seem to be competing, especially in the field of tourism,” he explained.
According to him, the development of tourism is also supported by the quality of human resources that manage it. Meanwhile, as a tourist area, human resource capacity development programmes tend to be artificial.
“Based on my research, most of those who participate in tourism training are not those who really have the ability to apply it so that the training provided is not on target,” he said.
Deputy Chairman for Organisation of the Central Executive Board of the Indonesian Tourism Industry Association (DPP GIPI) Maulana Yusran revealed that the fundamental problem in the implementation and administration of tourism is due to the inconsistency of regulations/policies between the Central Government and Regional Governments.
“Our tourism does not have a handle and its development only occurs spontaneously which has an impact on the quality of the environment so that it decreases, the quality of destination governance is low, tourism services are not excellent and the capacity of tourism human resources is still low,” said Maulana.
Chairman of Advocacy (DPP GIPI) Hellen Sarita de Lima agrees with Maulana. She argued that collaboration between policy makers and stakeholders should be carried out to develop tourism in the regions.
