The marine tourism sector is expected to contribute US$4 billion in 2019, or a four-fold increase from the present contribution, according to Tourism Minister Arief Yahya.
“We hope that the foreign exchange earnings from marine tourism will increase in 2019 from $1 billion this time,” Yahya remarked, during the signing ceremony of cooperation between the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries and the Ministry of Tourism in the field of marine tourism here, on Tuesday.
The minister admitted that the contribution of marine tourism to the foreign exchange at present was still lower than that of the tourism sector as a whole.
He said that the marine tourism currently contributes to only about 10 percent of the overall foreign exchange of national tourism that reaches $10 billion per year. Thus, the contribution of marine tourism is only about $1 billion.
The minister compared this to Malaysia, where marine tourism contributes to about 40 per cent of the total foreign tourists.
Malaysia itself is expected to rake in tourism foreign exchange of about $25 billion per year.
Yahya argued that the factors that lead to minimal contribution of marine tourism in Indonesia, among others, were regulatory factors, human resources, and the approach on being more concerned about security than services.