ER
TOURISM and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno is ready to begin the visit to 75 tourist villages that managed to pass the curation process in the 2023 Indonesian Tourism Village Award (ADWI) in March 2023.
This visit will be undertaken along with leadership ranks within the ministry, Uno noted through a statement issued on Saturday. They will directly greet the people and, accompanied by representatives of the judges, conduct evaluation toward the five categories in the 2023 ADWI.
“This visit is also undertaken to promote the 75 ADWI tourist villages to increase the number of visits and revenue from the sales of their local creative economy products. It was proven that in the earlier ADWIs, the number of tourist visits to tourism villages had increased by 30% on average,” Minister stated.
Sandiaga explained that in 2023, the ministry continues the 2023 ADWI program through collaboration with several strategic partners to encourage developing the potential of tourist villages. This is expected to become a new spirit and commitment from villagers looking to continue to develop their tourist villages to become world class, competitive, and sustainable institutions.
“This is because the 75 ADWI villages have diverse tourist appeal, starting from religious, green, marine, cultural to agro tourism,” he remarked.
To this end, Sandiaga deemed it crucial to improve the role of stakeholders, including regional governments. This can push regional development and give birth to local champions to improve the villagers’ human resource capacity.
“Let us develop Indonesia from the villagers. Indonesia is not the one that develops villages, but villages are the ones that develop Indonesia. Improving the local economy guarantees the people’s prosperity, and it can also serve as best practice for other tourist villages, not just in Indonesia but also in the entire world,” he concluded. [sources/photo special]
