Tourism dynamics: essence and its main function

2.3 Before and post pandemic statistics of tourism industry.
Tourism in Indonesia is an important component of the Indonesian economy, as well as an important source of foreign exchange earnings. Indonesia ranked 20th in the world tourism industry in 2017, as well as the world's ninth fastest growing tourism sector, Asia’s fastest third. In 2018, Denpasar, Jakarta and Bantam are among the 10 cities with the fastest growth in tourism, with 32.7, 29.2 and 23.3 percent, respectively. The country plans to acquire 8 percent of GDP from the tourism sector and aims to attract nearly 20 million visitors by 2019. The tourism sector ranks 4th among the goods and services export sectors. Total Covid cases, end of month in Indonesia, March 2020 - March 2022: For that indicator, we provide data for Indonesia from March 2020 to March 2022. The average value for Indonesia during that period was 2094342 total Covid cases with a minimum of 1528 total Covid cases in March 2020 and a maximum of 6012818 total Covid cases in March 2022. See the following number to see the values of Total Covid cases, end of month around the world¹⁹.
Figure 8. Indonesian Pandemic statistic

Source: by Jakarta/info/public
In 2016, nearly 12.02 million foreign tourists visited Indonesia, an increase of 15.5% compared to 2015. In 2015, 9.73 million international visitors entered Indonesia and stayed in hotels for an average of 7.5 nights, and spent an average of $ 1,142 per person, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Australia and Japan are the first five countries to visit Indonesia.
Travel and Tourism Competition Report 2019 report, Indonesia's Travel and Tourism Competition Index ranks 40th out of 140 countries with a score of 4.3. Indonesian’s 42nd ranking out of 136 countries in the 2017 general election improved by 4.2 points in two steps. Indicates that Indonesia has a very good travel and tourism policy and opportunities that provide opportunities (9th row). The country also gets a very good score in natural and cultural sources (17th row). However, due to the low level of development of some aspects of the tourism service infrastructure, the country has received a very low score in the infrastructure sub-index (75th place). 
The government prioritized 10 points as follows: Borobudur, Middle Java; Mandalika, West Nusa Tenggara; Labuan Bajo, East Nusa Tenggara; Bromo-Tengger-Semeru, East Java; Bin Islands, Jakarta; Toba. According to The Jakarta Post, the government is targeting 275 million trips by local tourists by the end of 2019. The government has also pledged a total of $ 70 million in accommodation, yacht harbors and ecotourism facilities in three of the 10 potential investors. Indonesia ranks seventh on Lonely Planet's list of the top 10 countries to visit in 2019. The country is ranked fourth by the travel site Trip Advisor in the world's top 25 destinations in 2018. On 2019, Indonesia recorded 16.10 million foreign tourist arrivals, seeing a 1.9% per cent increase than that of 2018. Tourism Revenues in Indonesia averaged 2392.11 USD Million from 2010 until 2021, reaching an all-time high of 4722.71 USD Million in the third quarter of 2019 and a record low of 76.94 USD Million in the third quarter of 2021.
The number of international tourists arriving in Jakarta through Soekarno Hatta and Halim Perdana Kusuma Airports fell by 13.5% in 2019 to 2.4 million, down from 2.8 million in 2018 according to recently released BPS Province DKI Jakarta data. Bali is arguably Indonesia's most popular tourist destination, and saw a total of almost 6.3 million direct foreign tourist arrivals in 2019. The tourism sector is a significant driver of Indonesia’s economic growth. In recent years, Bali has seen growing environmental problems such as pollution and freshwater scarcity. Popular tourist destination Kuta beach is regularly covered in waste. Most of this is plastic that washes ashore during the rainy season. The island's garbage dumps are reportedly overflowing. Not only are previously unspoiled beaches rapidly developing for tourism, Bali is now also suffering from waste and water management, infrastructure development and power deficiency problems, which many point to tourism as the main culprit. Specifically, Bali has high level of disaster as well, because of tropical climate and its location. Taking into account the location the riskiest areas are in tropic zones and they are affected by natural disasters as tropical storms, flooding, drought, earthquakes, tsunamis and other cataclysmic events. However, recently, a combination of the global economic downturn and extreme weather events has had an impact on the number of visitors coming to the island. In 2019, Bali fell short of its foreign visitor arrival targets.
And the problem goes further. Despite being one of its most important economic activities, tourism also has serious consequences for the island’s environment. Not only are previously unspoiled beaches rapidly developing for tourism, Bali is now also suffering from waste and water management, infrastructure development and power deficiency problems, which many point to tourism as the main culprit.In 2019, Bali faced a water crisis and salt water intrusions into the water table as a result of late rains and the sheer amount of water being used by the tourism industry. The latter is responsible for the use of 65% of Bali’s water, according to Indonesian NGO IDEP. While the world is bombarded with pictures on Instagram of infinity pools in the jungle and pristine beaches, the reality of Bali is a little different. Abdu’s streets are choked with large vehicles and lined with tatty souvenir shops. The cities on the south coast are a tangled mess of massage parlors, luxury hotels and Australian ago toast cafes, with little to show for the local culture. This overdependence on tourism and the environmental impacts of mass tourism have prompted a rethink by authorities on the island’s tourism strategy. With growing interest in responsible and sustainable tourism, the island’s officials have begun exploring alternatives — including the ‘less is more’ approach. Bali’s new tourism Minister has also signaled a desire to move tourism away from the south coast to lesser known regions in the North and West, highlighting their natural assets. The ‘less is more’ strategy is gaining ground around the world, with its focus is on promoting tourism that seeks quality over quantity.
Bhutan is famous for this approach where tourist pay approximately $250 per day to visit the mountain Kingdom. Amsterdam has just introduced a tourist tax to help tackle overcrowding and places like Venice are considering doing the same. Up and coming destinations have also been exploring the strategy. During my first trip to Myanmar I remember an ex-pat working in Yangon telling me that the government were seeking to position themselves as a luxury travel destination to avoid the fate of Bangkok as a haven for backpackers and revelers. The problem in Myanmar being that the it was already expensive, without the quality to justify the cost. So they had a long way to go. For Bali a ‘less is more’ approach means would mean a decision to priorities quality and preserving its natural attractions over lower prices and mass tourism. Bali’s aim is in considering this approach is to reduce the negative social and environmental consequences associated with the large numbers tourists that visit its shores and jungles, but to maintain its economic receipts. The strategy would focus on the quality of the experience by tourists, likely with a strong focus on green, sustainable tourism, and expect them to pay more for it — hence both ‘less is more’ for Bali and for the tourist. The importance of tourism to Bali means they must pursue this strategy with great care and planning, and I have yet to see any analysis on the optimal level of tourism to maintain both the environment and the economic receipts the island desires. There is an obvious and urgent need to do something about the environmental impacts of tourism and development on the island, while putting in place an economically viable approach for local communities and businesses. The short term impact of this strategy on the travelers who love Bali as a low-cost destination is potentially negative, but the broader impacts are worth considering.
It has the potential to protect fragile ecosystems in Bali, and maintain the economic activity of local businesses and resorts. However, in order to do this, it will also require the local government to adopt a broader green or environmental policies — ones that takes into consideration ways to improve its infrastructure and tackle some of its existing problems, particularly relating to water management. More broadly, and this is the exciting part for me, Bali increasing its focus on quality over quantity tourism, and raising the cost of visiting, may force a proverbial ‘spreading of the love’ to other destination that don’t benefit from the levels of tourism afforded to Bali at present. This can open a window to explore new places and enable visitors to Bali to develop a deeper appreciate for its own cultural and environmental uniqueness. Mass tourism in Bali, for example, has had a significant impact: Mass tourism in Bali, for example, has had a significant impact: 1) a big burden on waste management, 2) traffic congestion, 3) cultural dilution, 4) tourist misbehavior (Chong, 2020) . In the shallow ecotourism scenario, the number of tourists increased by 103.3% (from 12,584 people to 25,587 people).
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented disruption. Many vulnerable people who rely on tourism for their livelihoods are affected most by the ongoing, uncertain situation caused by the pandemic, including Resi Budiana from North Lombok Regency of West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) and Muhammad Buharto from West Manggarai Regency of East Nusa Tenggara (NTT).
Resi and Muhammad have heavily relied on their livelihoods and main sources of incomes from the tourism sector. Resi, 32 years old, have been managing a mountain trekking business since 2017. She is one of 53 women joining Rinjani Women Adventure (RWA) established in 1995. Meanwhile Muhammad has been working a tour guide for three years at Labuan Bajo, the gateway to the Komodo National Park—one of Indonesia’s main tourism destinations. Both of them have also suffered lack of international and domestic tourists, loss of incomes and deterioration of businesses. Resi, who had been relied on her tourism business to support her family for years, have to deal with difficulties managing her decreased income. Before the pandemic, a tour guide was a promising job. I could earn up to Rp 500,000 (US$36) per day, excluding tips,” Muhammad said, adding that during the pandemic he tried to create virtual tours but with no avail. The COVID-19 virus has brought tourism to its knees across the globe, so too in Indonesia. In the early period of the pandemic, between March and September 2020, the national debate in Indonesia (including the government, tourism businesses and academics) gradually saw the emergence of several competing discourses and narratives focused on short-term recovery of tourism, as well as potential long-term future developments. In this chapter we provide an analysis of the dominant discursive themes and their relation to the broader issue of sustainable tourism. The notion of the ‘New Normal’ clearly emerged as an overarching discourse that framed the debate throughout the period, with the notion of sustainable tourism gradually moving to the foreground as we entered the second half of 2020. Under the heading of the New Normal, three prominent issues prevailed: social distancing, health and hygiene protocols, and ‘quality tourism’. Despite the growing significance of the notion of sustainability in the Indonesian tourism discourse, the interpretations and implementation of the concept itself remains indistinct and limited. As discourses will change as circumstances change, a continued monitoring of the developing discourse and its implementation is needed to assess whether the envisioned sustainability improvements will materialize or remain rhetorical. According to data from the UNWTO, the international tourism receipts in Indonesia for the third quarter of 2021 was around 77 million U.S. dollars. By comparison, the international tourism receipts in the first quarter of 2020 was around 2.9 billion U.S. dollars. Indonesia's tourism sector had been greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which had effectively put a stop to leisure travel globally. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, put the brakes on the growth of international tourism. Numerous countries worldwide started introducing travel restrictions in early 2020, leading to an almost overnight stop in international travel. The decrease in international tourists led to negative quarterly growth of tourism receipts in Indonesia, with the island of Bali being particularly hard hit. Foreign tourist arrival numbers to Bali decreased by 100 percent, affecting the island's hospitality, food and beverage, and cultural sectors the hardest. To revive the island's economy, in October 2021, the Indonesian government has reopened Bali for international tourists. Starting in April 2022, international tourists visiting Bali, Bantam, and Bintan Islands will no longer be required to undergo quarantine. However, just like all arrivals from overseas, international tourists also have to be fully vaccinated upon their arrival and tested negative. Many hope that this would improve the situation significantly.
On the other hand, the Indonesian government had been heavily promoting domestic tourism to boost the industry. Although the number of domestic trips made in Indonesia far surpasses that of international visitors, domestic tourists spend on average around just half of what international visitors to Indonesia spend. Thus, the uptake in domestic tourism could not adequately compensate for the losses incurred from the decrease in international tourists. For the industry to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels, the safety of international travel must be guaranteed. This Covid-19 originated in China and there are a lot of impacts caused by this virus. One of the impacts on the tourism sector. The impact on the tourism sector is quite large because it automatically also has an impact on the economy and the sustainability of people's lives. And various efforts to restore this deteriorating condition have begun to be made so that tourism can operate normally again in compliance with government health protocols. But the lack of public concern to prevent the spread of the corona virus is still very much and in the end many people are affected by the virus. There are five aspects affected by Covid-19 for the tourism sector, namely: Economic aspects. which is where the cessation of tourism activities in various regions in Indonesia automatically stops income from tourism services, Tax revenue aspects. With the cessation of tourism activities in each province, the potential for losses will be very large, where the target of tax revenue from the tourism sector will be much reduced compared to 2019.With the rising number of people who got COVID-19 vaccinations worldwide, including in Indonesia, it is hoped that the tourism sector would see growth and recovery by the end of 2022. According to data from the UNWTO, there were about 2.06 million people employed in the tourism industry in Indonesia in 2020. The number of people employed in the tourism industry had been increasing significantly over the years. In 2018, the total international receipts in Indonesia was around 15.6 billion U.S. dollars. In the previous year, about 9.26 million visitors came to Indonesia for holidays, leisure, and recreation purposes. According to data from the UNWTO, ²⁰the inbound tourism expenditure in Indonesia was approximately 3.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, significantly decreased from the previous year. Tourism is one of Indonesia's biggest industries, and certain local economies such as Bali were heavily dependent on this sector.
In 2020, travel and tourism sector in Indonesia contributed about 3.2 percent to Indonesia's GDP. The decrease since the previous year was expected due to the adverse effect on tourism brought by the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. In 2020, the travel and tourism sector in Indonesia contributed about 502.22 trillion Indonesian rupiah to the country's GDP, which reflects a decrease of almost half of the previous year's contribution. The decrease was expected due to the adverse effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism industry in the country. Todays statistic shows a forecast of the estimated absolute economic contribution of tourism in Indonesia until 2025. It is projected to reach 89,848.80 million U.S. dollars by 2025²¹.The shown data are an excerpt of Statist’s Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in more than 150 countries and regions worldwide. All input data are sourced from international institutions, national statistical offices, and trade associations. All data has been are processed to generate comparable datasets. the COVID-19 pandemic on Indonesia’s tourism industry, as this and its supporting sectors are the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, by clustering the provinces based on the room occupancy rate (ROR) to understand provinces specific impacts. Several big data sources are employed to study the different impacts of the pandemic on two tourists’ most popular provinces, i.e. Bali and Yogyakarta. A number of tourism indicators such as number of international arrivals, ROR from the BPS statistics Indonesia, combined with data from Google mobility index, Google trend, flight tracker and reviews from Trip advisor and Booking.com are presented. Provinces are clustered by ROR category using the dynamic time warping method. The COVID-19 pandemic has obviously impacted the tourism industry and its supporting sectors in across Indonesia. However, this study explains the different patterns of the impact in different provinces. By investigating some secondary sources, we find that the number of tourist arrivals in Indonesia fell by 71 percent during the pandemic. In addition, foreign exchange earnings through industry and tourism in 2020 decreased by 81 percent at $3.2 billion compared to 2019 of $16.9 billion. To put the current situation in perspective, in 2019, the year before COVID-19 shut the world’s borders, more than 12 million Indonesians were employed in the travel and tourism sectors. This included workers directly employed and also those working in industry supply chains. The nation attracted 16.1 million international visitors who contributed US$15.8 billion (223 trillion rupiah) to the economy. The value of domestic and international tourism was 5.7 percent of national gross domestic product. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented disruption. In the first nine months of 2020 it has been estimated that Indonesia’s tourism industries lost US$14 billion (Rp 202 trillion), leading to a 1.6 percent decline in GDP, a 1.7 percent shortfall in personal income and up to 3.4 million job losses. Many of those jobs in the tourism industry would have been filled by people from vulnerable and marginalized groups. Across the archipelago, the collapse of tourism has resulted in 3.1 percent of female workers, 2.7 percent of youth employees, 3.1 percent of lower-educated workers, and 2.3 percent of those in low-income positions facing high levels of job insecurity.
Total Covid cases, end of month in Indonesia, March 2020 - March 2022: For that indicator, we provide data for Indonesia from March 2020 to March 2022. The average value for Indonesia during that period was 2094342 total Covid cases with a minimum of 1528 total Covid cases in March 2020 and a maximum of 6012818 total Covid cases in March 2022²². Click on the following link to see the values of Total Covid cases, end of month around the world²³.