Legislator: Indonesia's Tourism Promotion Must Be Balanced with Infrastructure Readiness

Novita Hardini, a member of Indonesia’s House of Representatives Commission VII, highlighted that the vigorous promotion of the country’s tourism must be matched with adequate infrastructure and spatial planning of tourist destinations. She emphasized the need for the Ministry of Tourism to focus on building core infrastructure as the central strategy of national tourism. “Our promotion is impressively vigorous, reaching overseas. But the question is, is our infrastructure ready to receive tourists? Clearly not,” said Novita. She added that it would be wiser to allocate part of the promotion budget to improving road access and ensuring equitable spatial distribution of tourism areas. Hardini also pointed out the need for inter-ministerial coordination in the development of tourism infrastructure.