Tourists in Bali, Indonesia
THE tourism minister of Indonesia, Arief Yahya, is inviting the Indonesia Hotel & Restaurant Association (IHRA) to submit a list of recommendations on what government regulations need to be abolished in order to enable the industry to better compete in the region.
Speaking at the opening of IHRA National Workshop in Bali yesterday, the minister said: “One of our weaknesses as a country is that we are very slow. Regulations have slowed us down.”
Quoting World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2015, the minister said Indonesia ranked in the world’s top 20 in terms of natural resources and third in terms of pricing competitiveness, but Indonesia lagged behind on business environment, ranking 63rd.
Citing the examples of Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, which are geographically smaller in size but outperforming Indonesia in tourism, he said: “Speed is our weakness in today’s world, where (we no longer go by) ‘the big eats the small’, but (rather) ‘whoever is fast wins the game’.”
As well, he added that Indonesian president Joko Widodo has set 2016 as the year of the acceleration of deregulation.
“Therefore, I expect this forum will come up with a list of regulations which you believe have become stumbling blocks in your business and which we need to scrap. This is our best chance to do so, while our president is pro tourism,” he said.
Ida Bagus Ngurah Wijaya, chairman of Bali Tourism Board, who is also a hotelier, said: “Before the regional autonomy era (which started in 2005), hotel licences were set by the central government, so there was a uniformity in the requirements. Today, each regency government can come up with its own regulation. This is our biggest challenge in the hospitality industry.”
Haryadi Sukamdani, chairman of IHRA said there were many issues that the workshop would discuss, both to set its working plan in the next one year and recommendations from the industry to the government.
The IHRA workshop is currently ongoing, taking place from April 20 to 24.
