Analyzing Indonesia's Competitiveness in Tourism Industry

Asean Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2012 ranked Indonesia in 74th position, far greater than Singapore (10), Malaysia (35), Thailand (41) and even to Brunei (67). Indonesia is only "better" than Vietnam (80), Philippines (94) and Cambodia (109). The report conducted by Asean Travel and Tourism analyzed strength and weakness of travel sector and tourism among the Asean countries. The appraisal consists of 14 main fields such as regulation policy, environmental sustainability, safety & security, health & hygiene, transportation condition, tourism infrastructure, human resources, natural resources and culture resources. To data, several countries have been acknowledged with their attractive effort to develop tourism industry, Switzerland, Austria and Germany are among these three countries. Singapore is the only countries in Asean region who successfully listed in the top 10 beaten countries such as Hong Kong (12), Japan (25), Korea (31), Taiwan (41) and China (47). Several experts have indicated their optimism that Indonesia is likely to move up to better rank due to following main drivers such as cost competitiveness (ranked 4th), beauty of natural resources (17th), culture resources (23th) and human resources (51). Ministry of Tourism and Creative Industry has listed at least 15 main tourism destinations with DMO (Destination Management Organization) development: 1. Kota Tua, Jakarta (Old Town, a colonial legacy) 2. Pangandaran, West Java (beach) 3. Borobudur, Central Java (temple) 4. Bromo-Tengger-Semeru, East Java (volcano / mountain) 5. Toba, North Sumatra (volcanic lake) 6. Sabang, Nangroe Aceh Darussalam (beach) 7. Kintamani, Bali (scenery) 8. Rinjani, West Nusa Tenggara (Mountain) 9. Komodo-Kelimutu-Flores, East Nusa Tenggara (new seven wonders, lake and scenery) 10. Tanjung Puting, Central Kalimantan (national park) 11. Derawan, East Kalimantan (resort island) 12. Toraja, South Sulawesi (ethnic group indigenous) 13. Bunaken, North Sulawesi (resort island) 14. Wakatobi, South East Sulawesi (national park) 15. Raja Ampat, Papua (resort island) At present, Indonesia owns at least 80 main tourism objects and more than 200 objects to develop, as a matter of fact, several main destination have been listed as the main destination to visit in Asia, such as Ubud, Bali which is listed at rank 14th anfter Singapore, still it is excluded from the world main tourism destination. Within the next three years, Ministry of Tourism and Creative Industry is likely to develop another 29 promising tourism objects which will be developed gradually based on four main stages such as pioneering, development, maintenance and revitalization. (Sources: Investor Daily, Saturday, June 16, 2012, translated by Invisindo Inti Data, www.invisindo.com)