Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Airlangga Hartarto, has acknowledged that investment in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in the tourism sector is still low due to minimum capital inflow as an impact of constraints on access to flight routes.
Tourism SEZs are among others Mandalika in West Nusa Tenggara, Tanjung Lesung in Banten, Morotai in North Maluku, Likupang in North Sulawesi, and Labuan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara.
Airlangga said that weak investment in SEZs in the tourism sector was triggered by the absence of domestic and international airline routes that connect neighboring countries to small cities directly.
He cited that direct flight routes to a number of SEZs in the tourism sector tended to be more numerous before the Covid-19 Pandemic. Poor accessibility makes it difficult for SEZs to attract tourists.
“If there are no flights, how will tourists come? If they have to go to Jakarta first before continuing to Mandalika or North Sulawesi, that’s a round trip,” Airlangga said on Tuesday, December 17, 2024.
Therefore, the government is trying to open flight services from a number of domestic and international airports so that they can serve direct flights to the tourism sector SEZs in Indonesia.
“The government wants to open regional airlines so that they can go directly to their destinations of interest,” he said.
Direct flight services are one of the incentives that can accelerate the entry of investment in tourism SEZs.
“Opening international routes is part of the incentive, what’s important is that the air bridge is opened,” Airlangga concluded.
The Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy has been targeting foreign exchange earnings from the tourism and creative economy sector to be in the range of US$7.38 billion (Rp118.4 billion) to US$13.08 billion in 2024. As of July 2024, the ministry has collected foreign exchange of US$7.46 billion (Rp113.69 trillion).
