More Tourism Villages Need to Go Digital: Indonesian Minister

MALANG, KOMPAS.com - Indonesia's Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy hopes the tourism villages can help revive the economy and tourism sector which has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic.

To do so, the government will help entrepreneurs in the tourist villages to promote their products and services by utilizing digital technology, which can attract more tourists to come and create job opportunities for the residents.  

"We want to improve the skills and abilities of the tour operators in the tourist villages to embrace digital technology to create job opportunities in the future," said Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Salahudin Uno on Saturday, May 22.

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Sandiaga said that a creative economy approach can improve the economic activity in a tourist village previously. Citing an example, a hectare plot of land in the tourist village which was initially worth only 10 million rupiahs ($696), could gain an annual income of 1.2 billion rupiahs ($83,000) because of its economic added value.    

Therefore, the government through the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry has provided total incentive assistance worth 60 billion rupiahs ($4 million) to revive the tourism sector in the country. 

The assistance, which will be launched in June, is intended for five creative economy sub-sectors and tourism village entrepreneurs. Sandiaga ensured that the assistance program would run transparently and reach its target.

"This is what I want to give, an economic approach that is in favor of the village community and ensure that the government programs will reach the target," he said.

(Writer: Andi Hartik | Editor: Anggara Wikan Prasetya)

Source: https://travel.kompas.com/read/2021/05/23/070700527/sandiaga-minta-desa-wisata-beradaptasi-agar-ciptakan-lapangan-kerja.