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THE tourism industry is claimed to have lost at least US$1.5 billion or equivalent to IDR21 trillion since January 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This figure consists of risk of loss due to loss of income from Chinese tourists worth US$1.1 billion and the remaining US$400 million with the value of losses from tourists from other countries.
According to the Chairperson of the Indonesian Employers’ Association (APINDO), Hariyadi B. Sukamdani said, since the pandemic broke out, the occupancy rate of hotel rooms or hotel occupancy of star classifications averaged only 49.2%.
“The tourism destination areas that feel the most number of tourists are Manado, Bali and Batam. Data from the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy until the second week of April also noted that 180 destinations and 232 tourist villages in Indonesia were closed,” he said.
Hariyadi, who is also the Chairperson of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI), also said that currently at least 1,674 hotels and 500 restaurants in Indonesia had stopped operating.
The impact, said Hariyadi, is that some hotels have offered leave to lay off their daily workers. Meanwhile, contract workers and still be given work time in rotation.
“This is done by the company so that cash flow is maintained, which is currently a hotel company trying to keep spending on workers in the figure of 50% of the usual period,” he said.
He added, the Central Statistics Agency recorded foreign tourist arrivals in January-February 2020 only 2.16 million people, down 11.8% from the same period last year. Visits recorded at BPS as of February 2020 also fell by 28.85% on an annual basis. [business.com/photo special]
