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THE MINISTER of Tourism and Creative Economy, Sandiaga Uno is optimistic that foreign tourist arrivals in 2023 will reach 10 million visits, or exceed the target of 8.5 million visits.
According to him, the government is targeting 8.5 million foreign tourist visits this year. However, he is optimistic that the figure will increase by 20-25% with the current conditions.
“We at the Ministry of Tourism provide performance guidance to tourism and creative economy sector actors. There have been two revisions, now the latest figure is 8.5 million. It looks like, we’re about 20-25% on top above the 20-25% target, above the most optimistic target. If the optimistic target is 8.5 million, but we see that the number of foreign tourists will reach 10 million this year,” he said in Jakarta, Tuesday (8/15), 2023.
He explained that, therefore, I ask retail entrepreneurs to prepare themselves to be able to provide services and products to tourists. I don’t want tourists to come just to be ‘spiritual’, or groups just to look around, ‘rohana’, or groups just asking questions. They have to become ‘rojali’, or groups of people who buy and sell Indonesian modern retail products. Because this is a modern retail, they have to be ‘rogana’, or groups that don’t use bargains.
Sandiaga added that the retail sector was also considered to have contributed greatly to the movement of local tourists, which the government targeted 1.2-1.4 billion movements in 2023. A total of 1.2-1.4 billion movements of these domestic tourists were driven by shopping activities. So, keep the promo moving, keep using social media because the added value of IDR1,300 trillion from the creative economy and employment, which totals 45 million, really depends on the movement and mobility of our economy.
“The community movement is very much triggered by retail sector promos and events. Thus, household consumption, which is the biggest contributor to economic growth, will continue to be boosted. We record that there are 3,000 events this year that can create up to US$12 billion in terms of economic impetus,” he said.
Furthermore, Sandiaga said that there are challenges that threaten Indonesia’s shopping tourism potential, namely related to Jakarta’s poor air quality. In fact, Jakarta is the second door after Bali for the entry of foreign tourists. When it comes to shopping tourism, it’s Jakarta, but our air quality is the worst.
“The government is committed to reducing air pollution in Jakarta. This is so that it does not only threaten health but also tourist visits and economic movement. That’s why, we are now doing weather modification in the short term. We will also fundamentally change our way of life, which previously all used fossil-fueled cars, we will focus on electric fuels,” he concluded. [traveltext.id/photo special]
