The Challenges of Tourism Development

The richness of Indonesia in tourist objects, from natural beauty to unique traditions, is unquestionable. It is support-ed by the availability of sufficient tourist facilities. Furthermore, apart from the aforementioned potentials of the country, there are certain facts which will drive more and more foreign tourists to visit Indonesia, namely :

1. A sounder national stability
2. The relatively low travelling cost
3. The ever-increasing number of inter-national tourists, and the Asian-Pacific region becoming more attractive to the tourists
4. The confused political situation in certain formerly-tourist destination-regions such as the Middle East and South-Asia
5. The attitude of the world communities, especially those of the industrialized countries (US and western Europe-an countries), tends to change. • They are seeking for more humaneri-dentities and more natural destinations.

Challenges of Tourism Development
The opportunities and potentials of Indonesia for tourism development are faced with challenges such as

• Stronger competitions among tourist destination countries;
• The limited access to enter the country, and limited availability of local transportation facilities for visitors to reach tourist destination areas;
• The relatively high price of board and lodgings when compared to those of neighboring countries;
• A tendency that western tourists prefer other countries of tourist destination owing to lack of information concerning Indonesia;
• Poor image and low quality of tourism products which make it hard to enter the world tourism market or even certain countries;
• The limited number of and skilled workers in the tourism field;
• Only a relatively small part of the people have been participating in efforts to support tourism development;
• The relatively low standard of services to tourists which does not reflect a hospitable host;
• The visits of tourists have not been effectively used for the marketing of handicrafts and products of the small scale industries