Tourism dynamics: essence and its main function

Table 3.

Indonesia Tourism Statistics
Year	International visitors
2000	5,064,217
2001	5,153,620
2002	5,033 400
2003	4,467,021
2004	5,321,165
2005	5,002,101
2006	4,871,351
2007	5,505,759
2008	6,429,027
2009	6,452,259
2010	7,002,944
2011	7,649,731
2012	8,044,462
2013	8,802,129
2014	9,435,411
2015	10,406,759
2016	11,519,275
2017	14,039,799
2018	15,810,305
2019	16,106,954

Source: by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lampung
The ten most popular tourist destinations in Indonesia recorded by Central Statistics Agency (BPS) are Bali, West Java, Central Java, East Java, Jakarta, North Sumatra, Lampung, South Sulawesi, South Sumatra, Banten, and West Sumatra (which would make it 11 provinces today due to Banten previously having been a part of West Java). As with most countries, domestic tourists are by far the largest market segment. The biggest movement of domestic tourists is during the annual Eid al-Fitr, locally known as lebaran. During this period, which is a two-week holiday after the month of fasting during Ramadan, many city-dwelling Muslim Indonesians visit relatives in their home towns. Intercity traffic is at its peak and often an additional surcharge is applied during this time. Over the five years up to 2006, attention has been focused on generating more domestic tourism. Competition amongst budget airlines has increased the number of domestic air travellers throughout the country. Recently, the Ministry of Labour legislated to create long weekends by combining public holidays that fall close to weekends, except in the case of important religious holidays. During these long weekends, most hotels in popular destinations are fully booked.Since 2000, on average, there have been five million foreign tourists each year (see table), who spend an average of US$100 per day. With an average visit duration of 9–12 days, Indonesia gains US$4.6 billion of foreign exchange income annually. This makes tourism Indonesia's third most important non-oil–gas source of foreign revenue, after timber and textile products.After toppled Japan two years ago, China as the world's biggest tourism spenders now toppled Australia to become number three with 30.42 per cent increase year-on-year , while foreign tourists growth by 10.6 per cent set to more than 2.9 million. The top countries of origin Q1 2014 data comes from the Asia-Pacific region, with Singapore (15.7 per cent), Malaysia (14.0), China (11.0), Australia, and Japan among the top countries of origin. The United Kingdom, France, and Germany are the largest sources of European visitors.[39] Although Dutch visitors are at least in part keen to explore the historical relationships, many European visitors are seeking the tropical weather at the beaches in Bali. Around 59% of all visitors are travelling to Indonesia for holiday purposes, while 38% for business. In 2012, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council, travel and tourism made a total contribution of 8.9% of GDP and supported 8% of total employment in Indonesia.
Development of the tourism sector in Indonesia from 1995 to 2020
The following chart shows the number of tourist arrivals registered in Indonesia each year. Anyone who spends at least one night in the country but does not live there for more than 12 months is considered a tourist. Insofar as the survey included the purpose of the trip, business trips and other non-tourism travel purposes have already been excluded. The number of people passing through within the same day, and e.g. crew members of ships or flights are also not considered as tourists in most countries. If the same person travels in and out more than once within the same year, each visit counts again.
Data in the chart are given in millions of tourists. The red line represents the average of all 11 countries in Southeast Asia.
Figure 4. Indonesians tourism from 1995 to 2020

Source: by https://www.statista.com/statistics/1150635/indonesia-value-of-international-tourism-receipts/
Revenues in tourism
In 2018, tourism revenues amounted to 5.23 billion USD, or about 2.6 percent of the gross national product. This corresponded to about 4.32 million tourists at that time and roughly 1,209 USD per person. Within 35 years, the country's dependence on tourism has decreased substantially. In the last year of the survey, the revenue now amounts to 3.53 billion USD, accounting for 0.33 percent of the gross national product. Each visitor now spends an average of 872 USD for his holiday in Indonesia Figure 5.¹² Revenue in Tourism.
Source: www.statista.com/statistics

Chapter II. Factors influencing the tourism growth in Indonesia.
2.1 Threats to tourism: pros and cons of civil issues.
The tourism sector along with other sectors contribute to the development of Indonesia’s economy. Development in tourism provides jobs, income opportunities, as well as bolster the developments of various infrastructures which leads to the growth of Indonesia's Gross Domestic Product. Tourism has boomed in Indonesia in recent years and is already one of the main sources of foreign-currency earnings. Indonesia has rich and diverse natural assets; whose tourism potential remains underutilized. The government has an ambitious target of attracting 20 million tourists by 2019, up from nearly 14 million in 2017. The main destination will continue to be Bali. Using Bali as the preferred development model, the government wants to develop other destinations, particularly through infrastructure programs to improve connectivity, which is a longstanding challenge for tourism as well as for regional development more generally. Enhancing the tourism-related skills of local populations will provide them with expanded job opportunities. This calls for reforms to vocational education and training. Moreover, recent efforts by the authorities to improve the business environment need to continue, including through helping firms embrace digitalisation. Tourism may be growing too fast in some destinations without adequately taking into account sustainability issues, both for the environment and local communities. Better planning and co-ordination at all levels of government and across relevant policy areas can facilitate more sustainable tourism development. Indonesia is an archipelago with long stretches of seas and coastlines making it one of the most coveted tourist destinations in the world. As a benchmark of the development of Indonesia’s tourism, below is the comparison of tourist visits in Indonesia and its neighboring countries. Indonesia ranks fourth position in terms of the number of foreign tourist visits compared to neighboring countries below Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore while ranks only slightly above Vietnam. This fact should serve as a wake up. The Indonesian tourism has been growing significantly each year as can be seen from the steadily growing number of tourist visits in recent years. This increasing tourist visits consequently will have a significant impact on the increase of the local community’s income. The enormous potentials possessed by Indonesian tourism are inseparable from the role of Balinese tourism. As can be seen from the table above, around 40 percent of foreign tourists visiting Indonesia was contributed by tourists visiting Bali. This is in line with the statement from the Minister of Tourism Arief Yahya who stated that "Bali contributes around 40 percent of the total foreign tourist visiting Indonesia. When a travel warning is issued against Bali, its impact will not only affect Bali but also Indonesia" (Tribunnews.com, 2017). The second highest tourism potential is held by Jakarta which contributes around 30 percent, the third is the Riau Islands (Karimun, Bintan, Batam, Tanjungpinang) around 20 percent, the fourth position is held by Yogyakarta, while Bandung is in the fifth. In 2019, President Joko Widodo revealed that the government was targeting 20 million foreign tourist visits (merahputih.com, 2017). In order to achieve this target, the supports from various parties were crucial, including those from tourism businesses. The President through The Ministry of Tourism launched a program to create ten new “Bali’s or ten priority tourist destinations, with the emphasis on improving the performances of other destinations in Indonesia to replicate Bali’s tourism, capable of attracting six million tourists and increasing significantly each year. Ten destinations set as the new “Bali’s will possess distinct characteristics and uniqueness and are not necessarily less attractive compared to Bali. As for now, the government has agreed to focus on accelerating the development of four destinations out of the ten new Bali’s. The development is realized through building homestays, restaurants, souvenir shops and SME centers. These four new destinations are Lake Toba, Borobudur, Mandalika and Labuan Bajo. The changing dynamics in world markets and the increasingly intense international tourism competition requires the right strategy to maintain tourism in Bali as the most sought-after and favorable destination for many tourists. The improvement of tourist safety in Bali, image promotions (roadshow promotions, media relations, and cultural diplomacies) and product improvements (transportation, facilities and infrastructures) will provide better comfort and positive impressions for visiting tourists and boost their interests to revisit in the future. According to UNWTO, there were nearly 120 million domestic guests in commercial accommodation in 2016, up from around 40 million in 2009. Domestic tourism is concentrated around the Muslim holiday Eid ul-Fitr (Lebaran); the authorities also increased the number of public holidays to facilitate and encourage travel. Internal movements both facilitated and were facilitated by the rapid growth of low-cost airlines (Schlumberger and Weisskopf, 2014). This will likely continue in the future with the growing middle class, the expansion of airports and the quality improvement of some airlines (no Indonesian airline was left on the European Union’s ban list by 2018). However, a domestic tourist spends about USD 70 per trip compared to over USD 1 000 for a foreign visitor (Indonesia-Investments, 2016). Thus, the economic impact of domestic tourists remains limited, and the rest of this analysis focuses on foreign tourism. As part of its tourism development strategy, the government has prioritized 10 destinations for significant infrastructure development. The underlying aim is to learn from Bali’s experience as a major international tourist destination and replicate the model in destinations across Indonesia with high potential. The selection of the destinations was in large part driven by the pre-existence of a tourism industry; however, it did not take into account locations’ viability to develop as an international tourism destination including with respect to natural and cultural attractions. The need to promote geographical diversity also played a role. The 10 priority destinations are located in 10 of the 34 provinces with targets that represent sizeable increases.
Statistics Indonesia produces tourism satellite accounts that indicate that tourism is labor intensive as it represented 10.4% of total employment and 4.3% of GDP in 2015 (compared to 6.8% and 4.3%, respectively, on average in the OECD). In 2016, employment in tourism-related activities increased further to reach 12.3% of total employment. Using that ratio for 2015 (employment over GDP) as a simple rule of thumb implies that additional activity in tourism will add at least twice as many jobs as an equal expansion in all sectors. The ILO (2011) also estimated that one extra job in Indonesia’s core tourism industry (hotels and restaurants) indirectly generates roughly 1.5 additional jobs in the related economy. Overall, this implies that the tourism sector has huge job-creation potential. But this potential varies across regions. Using the share of workers in hotels, restaurants, wholesale and retail as a proxy – reveals huge differences.
There are some threats in tourism in Indonesia, which can leads to a decrease tourists. One of the enormous problem is terroristic acts¹³. Terrorists continue plotting possible attacks in Indonesia. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting police stations, places of worship, hotels, bars, nightclubs, markets/shopping malls, and restaurants. Since 2002, Indonesian police and security forces have disrupted a number of terrorist cells, greatly reducing the capacity of domestic terrorist organizations to plan and conduct terrorist attacks. Extremists in Indonesia, however, continue to aspire to carry out violent attacks against Indonesian and Western targets, and police have arrested more than 1,200 individuals on terrorism-related charges since 2018. Extremists may target both official and private establishments, including government offices, hotels, bars, nightclubs, shopping areas, restaurants, and places of worship. Whether at work, pursuing daily activities, or traveling, you should be aware of your personal safety and security at all times.
Indonesia: Robberies per 100,000 people, 2008 - 2017: For that indicator, we provide data for Indonesia from 2008 to 2017. The average value for Indonesia during that period was 5 robberies per 100,000 people with a minimum of 4 robberies per 100,000 people in 2008 and a maximum of 5 robberies per 100,000 people in 2009. The latest value from 2017 is 4 robberies per 100,000 people. For comparison, the world average in 2017 based on 79 countries is 105 robberies per 100,000 people. See the global rankings for that indicator or use the country comparator to compare trends over time.