Cultural Advantage 2.0

Indonesia needs to develop its tourism infrastructure

Indonesia needs to develop its tourism infrastructure
to attract more overseas tourists to visit the
country, as the 2008 Travel and Tourism (T&T)
Competitiveness Index report says that index for the
Indonesian infrastructure is the lowest.

The report is also highlighting the health and
hygiene, cultural resources, and Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure sectors
to be the lowest sub-indicator points among other
sub-indicators.

The indicators on the report, which was released on
March 4 by the World Economic Forum, are divided into
three major categories of competitiveness strength
from 1 to 7 scale: Regulatory framework
competitiveness; Business environment and
infrastructure; and Human, cultural and natural
resources indicators.

The report, under the theme Balancing Economic
Development and Environmental Sustainability, ranks
Indonesia as 80th out of 130 countries, with its
overall index decreasing from 4.2 to 3.7 this year.

In 2007's report, Indonesia was on the 60th rank of
the 124 countries.

Despite the decreasing scale of its index of last
year, Indonesia has attracted at least 5.51 million
foreign tourists visited Indonesia in 2007, up from
4.87 million in 2006 and the international tourist
arrivals have brought more than US$ 4.45 million last
year.

According to UN World Tourism Organization, the travel
and tourism sector in Indonesia has brought US$ 10.17
million of gross domestic products (GDP) and employed
nearly 2 million people to work within the industry
last year.

The World Travel and Tourism Council is estimating the
country to reach 5.7 percent annual growth on its GDP
and the employment growth will increase 1.5 percent
annually.

Meanwhile, the highest ranked country for the T&T
competitiveness within the South-East Asia regions is
Singapore, for placing the first place among the seven
South-East Asian countries listed or the 16th rank out
of 130 total countries with its overall index
decreasing from 5.31 to 5.06 this year.

Followed by Malaysia, which is on the 32nd rank of the
total 130 countries with its overall index 4.63,
Thailand is on the 42nd rank with index 4.37,
Indonesia is on the 80th rank with index 3.7,
Philippines is on the 81st rank with index 3.70,
Vietnam is on the 96th rank with index 3.57, and
Cambodia is on the 112th rank with index 3.32.

Indonesia is on the 4th position among the seven
Southeast Asian countries on the list.

Not like Indonesia who has significant dropped on its
scale index of last year report, Switzerland, Austria
and Germany remain the top three countries, which have
the most attractive environments for developing the
travel and tourism industry, as the report says.

This second annual report, is also consecutively
listed Australia, Spain, the United Kingdom, the
United States, Sweden, Canada and France as countries
in its top ten list, which have most appealing natures
to attract visitors after the three countries above.

The 2008 T&T report index uses hard data from publicly
available sources such as the International Air
Transport Association (IATA), the World Tourism
Organization (UNWTO), the World Trade Organization
(WTO), the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) as
well as survey data from the World Economic Forum’s
Executive Opinion Survey which provides unique
information on many qualitative institutional and
business environment issues.

The World Economic Forum is an independent
international non-profit organization, based in
Geneva, Switzerland, committed to improving the state
of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to
shape global, regional and industry agendas.

The forum was first established in January 1971 when a
group of European business leaders met under the
patronage of the European Commission and European
industrial associations.

diposting oleh Cultural Advantage 2.0 @ 06.41