Positive Impact Of Globalization On Tourism Industry In Indonesia

How Globalization Boosts Employment in the Tourism Sector

Globalization is the most happening topic in the world at present. Globalization is a process or act that makes something universal. We all know that this phenomenon has brought the entire world closer with no limits (Beck, 2015). It has led to the communication among people belonging to various cultures across the world via several visual as well as audio communication media. We get to see that most of the journalists and news channels focus on the negative impacts of globalization but here I will point out how advantageous it is to the tourism industry Indonesia. Apart from social change and advancement of technology it has a great positive impact on the tourism of Indonesia. Tourism is a pervasive and complicated activity. It is the activity of touring and travelling. Tourism has a great impact on the environmental, economic, cultural and social background of the people of the host country. In the era of 21^st century, globalization has made the tourism sector to be one of the largest industries. The tourism sector in Indonesia has been steady in its growth unlike other sectors where there have been extreme fluctuations. We all know that tourism is a sub part of liberalization and globalization (Ivanov & Webster, 2012). The growing globalization phase has resulted in the development of tourism in Indonesia. From the economic point of view, the competition between foreign and domestic employees has increased resulting in higher productivity and higher revenue, higher level of employment. From the social point of view, artifacts and historical monuments are preserved for the tourists. There has also been technological advancement. People often fail to appreciate the positive side of everything and enjoy criticizing everything. But I believe in appreciating and highlighting the positive aspects of life. According to me globalization has led to tremendous positive effect on the tourism of Indonesia and it is commendable (Heekeren, 2016). Here I have pointed out exactly how globalization has increased the growth in the tourism sector of Indonesia.

Globalization acts like a creator of jobs requiring high and expertise knowledge and skill sets. It led to the increase in employment opportunities in the tourism sector demanding people with different cultural skills and who know how to speak multiple languages. It gave job opportunities to the weak groups and women. The number of people getting employed in the Tourism Sector was 11.8 million.  Group tourism is one of the evident phenomenons of globalization. Statistical reports clearly show that the arrival of tourists in Indonesia have increased by 11.51 per cent from the year 2016 to 2017. The arrival of tourists in the month of May in 2016 was 841,723 whereas in 2017 May, it is reported to be 938,623. Most of the tourists had visited three places: Bali, Jakarta and Batam. Our government’s aim is to attract around 20 million visitors by the year 2019 (Investments, 2017). In the year of 2016, our country had around 11.52 million visitors from foreign lands. The average arrival rate of tourists in Indonesia is recorded as 758831.97 between the year 2011 and 2017. Globalization is changing the social structures, which is affecting the flow of tourism. The single market is growing which is leading to major opportunities for interest based and educational tourism (Sandee, 2016). Globalization is leading to a change in the work patterns. This is providing major flexibility in travel plans. Globalization has raised the standards of the hospitality and hotel sectors. The tourism sector has focused on the improvement of the service facility of the hotels and resorts to the global standards leading to customer satisfaction. . Our government has taken the initiative to develop accommodation facilities in well known destinations like Jakarta, Batam and Bali so that tourists can get it instantly. In the starting of this year it has been successful to build around 1000 global standards hotels and resorts for the tourists in the first ten famous tourist spots. Bangka Belitung, Lesung Beach, Lake Toba, Borobudur temple, Kepulauan Seribu, Mt. Bromo Tengger, Mandalika Beach, Labuan Bajo, Wakatobi are the spots where hotels and resorts are built for tourist purpose. These spots are known as the new destinations in Bali (Hampton & Jeyacheya, 2015).  Twenty thousands of houses have been built in the villages of Indonesia. This has led to the infrastructural development of these places.  Globalization made the access across the borders extremely easy. This increased the entry of foreign tourists in Indonesia. The liberalization and deregulation of air connectivity or transport supports tourism and trade. . Globalization led to the next plan of improving the “Air Connectivity” .  More than 75 per cent of the foreign tourists arrives our destination by flight. Our aim to improve the capacity of air seats to 4 million is in progress. Our Ministry of Transport is collaborating with our Ministry of Tourism in order to improve the international as well as the domestic airlines (Matsumoto, Domae & O’Connor, 2016). This has led to the improvement of airport facilities like the departure and arrival facilities of passengers. The number of flights has increased in Indonesia resulting in the employment of several people in the Airline Sector. The airports are operating for about 24 hours in order to facilitate the international flights. Direct flights are operating in well known destinations in our country. The Indonesian Central Bureau of Statistics released the official data which highlighted that the arrival of tourists has increased from January to October in the year 2016. Every year has seen a growth of 9.54 per cent reaching 9,413,814 in October 2016. It is expected to be 1.5 million in December 2017. Globalization has led to the developments and technological advancements in the industry of tourism. The “Go Digital” plan has started in the month of September in 2016. It has created Indonesia Tourism Exchange which is a digital market platform (Law et al., 2016). This platform is offered to the businesses of ecotourism and other activities of business where the sellers and buyers meet one another. The Indonesian Tourism Exchange is totally operational in this year. This made all the businesses go digital. Indonesia got several advantages by going digital. It became easy for us to monitor all the tourist related activities like getting feedbacks, domestic marketing, international marketing and big data analysis (Adi, 2014). This promoted digital technology in the country, which saved a lot of government expenses. This helped people to acquire information very easily by surfing the internet. Globalization has increased our importance towards protecting the environment which is providing benefits to all our tourism stakeholders. Tourism helps in preserving and conserving the natural resources, which encourages beautification and revitalization of the community by increasing the revenues which helps to maintain the heritage and natural attractions.  The landscape beauty of our country is getting better for attracting even more tourists (Assaf, 2012). Globalization increases the ability of the different countries to work in an united manner to overcome global challenges and natural disasters like whaling and global warming. I can simply see that tourism is not only developing the technological arena but also improving and overcoming the environmental issues which our country was facing previously.

Increasing Tourist Numbers with Globalization

According to the prescriptions of International Monetary Fund, tourism is type of export strategy. Tourism has been included as a part of Structural Adjustment Programmes by IMF. SAP focuses on the integration of the indebted country into global economy. All these are evidences of the fact that globalization is important for the development of the tourism in Indonesia. Social networks globalization, whether through international civil society, higher education or multinational companies are driving the further growth of travel and tourism. Tourism is removing the national or social prejudices in Indonesia (Cernat & Gourdon, 2012). It is promoting the understanding between the guests and hosts. It is improving the life of the local communities by increasing the availability of the recreational facilities. Globalization is increasing the contacts and communication among different cultures and spreading democratic ideals. The above discussed details make it quite evident that globalization has led to the increase in the number of tourists in Indonesia, which resulted in the growth of the country’s Gross domestic Product (GDP). The Tourism Sector of Indonesia has contributed about 11 per cent to the GDP of the country. The approximate tourist spending in the country was Rp 172 trillion. This provided indirect and direct tourism related jobs. We are aiming to increase the international arrivals by 25 per cent to 15 million by the end of 2017. The Minister of Tourism also reported that he wants an approximate 20 million international arrivals by the end of 2019. Our present year target that is 15 million is supposed to contribute about 13 per cent to the national Gross Domestic Product. This will provide 12 million jobs to our people (Indonesia, 2016). We are expecting a rank of 40 from a rank of 50 in the World Competitive Tourism Index within one to two years. The Tourism Minister said that this rank can be achieved through exceptional actions. According to me in order to achieve this target we all need to follow certain rules. We all should cooperate and coordinate among ourselves and with our foreign guests. Our speed of action must be very fast at every level of administration. We must spread confidence and positivity throughout the country. In order grow the tourism business we all should work as a team. This will increase the level of employment and GDP of the country (Ringer, 2013). Globalization has led the government to focus on the improvement of Indonesia’s infrastructure which also includes ICT infrastructure, health and hygiene. Our focus is also in enhancing online marketing campaigns held abroad. Our government’s visa-free policy established in 2015 has resulted in more number of foreign tourists, which is a result of globalization.

Infrastructure Development and Technological Advancements

Globalization has enhanced the tourism industry of Indonesia which in turn is responsible for enhancing our gross domestic product (GDP). This is because tourism will bring more foreign exchange as earnings. We know that every foreign visitor and tourist spends around 1,100 US dollars to 1,200 US dollars for each visit. This industry is also responsible for providing job opportunities and scope to our native people. The rate of unemployment in Indonesia was around 5.81 per cent in the month of February in 2015. Present estimation says that 9 per cent of the total workforce of the nation is working under the tourism sector. Tourism sector of our nation accounts for an approximate 4 per cent of the entire economy. Our government is aiming to double this 4 per cent to 8 per cent by 2019. In order to do this our number of visitors must be increased to 20 million.

Globalization has led to the increase in the tourist arrival rate from year to year. Tourist arrival data from the month of January to October from 2013 to 2016 is presented below:

Based on the above description, I can conclude that globalization has created positive impacts on the economy of Indonesia through the tourism industry. Globalization has resulted in the increase or growth in tourism across the world, Indonesia ranking among the most famous tourist places.  This has increased the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the economy of the country. Tourism contributes to about 11 per cent of the GDP. So it is very clear that globalization led to the growth of tourism which in turn led to the growth of economy, infrastructural development and environmental protection (Mowforth & Munt, 2015). Tourism is influenced by the competition that takes place globally. Competition has made Indonesia to adapt to the requirements of the potential tourists. It has led to specialization, innovation and improved product quality and services (Ivanov & Webster, 2012). I will suggest few things that our foreign visitors can do in order to protect our nation from various aspects. Tourists should be responsible for the well being of the host country (Hall & Page, 2012). Our tourism sector can do more by engaging itself with the major international institutes and providing stakeholders link who are exploited by globalization.  Our tourism sector can take the help of UNWTO for playing the role of advocacy. This can help our country, Indonesia to fully participate and effectively negotiate about trade rules and liberalization.

References

Adi, S. (2014). Evaluation On The Effectiveness Of The Web Technology Usage In Promoting And Marketing Indonesia Tourism. Journal of Theoretical & Applied Information Technology, 68(3).

Assaf, A. G. (2012). Benchmarking the Asia Pacific tourism industry: A Bayesian combination of DEA and stochastic frontier. Tourism Management, 33(5), 1122-1127.

Beck, U. (2015). What is globalization?. John Wiley & Sons.

Cernat, L., & Gourdon, J. (2012). Paths to success: Benchmarking cross-country sustainable tourism. Tourism Management, 33(5), 1044-1056.

Hall, C. M., & Page, S. (2012). Tourism in south and southeast Asia. Routledge.

Hampton, M. P., & Jeyacheya, J. (2015). Power, ownership and tourism in small islands: evidence from Indonesia. World Development, 70, 481-495.

Heekeren, H. V. (2016). The stone age of Indonesia (p. 150). Brill.

Indonesia, S. (2016). Trends of Selected Socio-Economic Indicators of Indonesia May 2016.

Investments, I. (2017). Tourism Indonesia: Foreign Tourist Arrivals Rise 5.9% in H1-2016 | Indonesia Investments. Indonesia-investments.com. Retrieved 18 July 2017, from https://www.indonesia-investments.com/news/todays-headlines/tourism-indonesia-foreign-tourist-arrivals-rise-5.9-in-h1-2016/item7063 (Investments, 2017)

Ivanov, S. H., & Webster, C. (2012). Tourism’s impact on growth: the role of globalisation.

Law, A., De Lacy, T., Lipman, G., & Jiang, M. (2016). Transitioning to a green economy: the case of tourism in Bali, Indonesia. Journal of Cleaner Production, 111, 295-305.

Matsumoto, H., Domae, K., & O’Connor, K. (2016). Business connectivity, air transport and the urban hierarchy: A case study in East Asia. Journal of Transport Geography, 54, 132-139.

Mowforth, M., & Munt, I. (2015). Tourism and sustainability: Development, globalisation and new tourism in the third world. Routledge.

Mustika, P. L. K., Birtles, A., Everingham, Y., & Marsh, H. (2013). The human dimensions of wildlife tourism in a developing country: Watching spinner dolphins at Lovina, Bali, Indonesia. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 21(2), 229-251.

Ringer, G. (Ed.). (2013). Destinations: cultural landscapes of tourism. Routledge.

Sandee, H. (2016). Improving Connectivity in Indonesia: The Challenges of Better Infrastructure, Better Regulations, and Better Coordination. Asian Economic Policy Review, 11(2), 222-238.

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