BALI DOWNFALL? Why LOMBOK Could Take Over Tourism
there's a lot of effort from the government to like turning Lombok into the next Bali and the idea has been like floated for over a decade or more and with the Mandala project and everything now you start to see that oh okay we want to have more alternative other than Bali so the beginning of this discussion actually goes back to I think a few months ago we published an article about Bali versus Lumball that instantly in a very short amount of time got a huge amount of interest so recently I also did an analysis looking at 3D spatial maps comparing Airbnb reviews in Bali versus Lombok and clearly Bali had a much larger amount of proven say bookings and stays and I think Ibu you approached us and said that there's a fundamental principle that we should be aware of where Lombok will never be the same as Bali so we're here to seek your knowledge we're here to seek your facts and information your guidance to how you see this as an economist what is the what are the first principles what are the things that you as an economist can understand about these different marketplaces that let's say casual observers are missing okay so I think that's a great question and it's also a very good observation and you're not alone in thinking that i think yeah there's a lot of effort from the government to like turning Lombok into the next Bali and the idea has been like floated for over a decade or more and with the Mandala project and everything now you start to see that oh okay we want to have more alternative other than Bali if you look at into the difference I'm not saying that B Lombok will never be Bali but I think it has to have its own identity in it I think we can talk about more of it But when you look at progress I think you need to look into the infrastructure be it hard infrastructure or the soft infrastructure hard infrastructure for sure you have gaps bali has deca decades of infrastructure development roads you have ports you had you have airport and Lombok is still catching up we know that the Mandelika project brought a lot of hype it brought a lot of like hope with the new roads the hotels uh I went to Mandalika before the circuit was built and there's only one hotel in Kouta now you have more so that's okay there's the new things that's happening there which is great but beyond that just for a quick one for a reference because maybe some of our audience is not familiar with the Mandela project could you tell us a little bit more about what is this headline project that you're the Mandela project please yeah yeah if you're a sports fan especially Moto GP fan you for sure know Indonesia is one of you in the calendar now we have a lot of Moto GP events in Malaysia in Thailand now it's coming to Indonesia so basically you have project around the Moto GP circuit but other than that beyond that area I think the island is still lacks of infrastructure and that makes Bali still accessible and also very attractive and if you look at the soft infrastructure hard infrastructure is really important right you need the road you need the air airport you need the ports you need the hotels and everything like that but beyond that you have soft infrastructure for example you have the cultural and tourism appeal bali is very unique in a way that it's strong Hindu culture you have temple architecture you have spiritual tourism you have the yoga movement and all of the Ubud style is very different than Changangu style for example and that blends seamlessly with modern tourism lombok is predominantly Muslim sasak culture it's different not worse obviously it's just not the same kind of draw and I feel like it hasn't developed a clear like compelling identity for tourists that sets it apart from Bali if you talk about like natural beauty Lombok is stunning just think of the Gillies i've been to the Gillies several times wanted to track at R i'm into tracking hiking these days so I think Renjani next year would be great for me and then you have the uncrowded beaches the quiet beaches is I went to the eastern part of Blumbok several years ago i stayed to I stayed at this like a beach camp i think it's called Jifa Biloam it's great my own private beach everything is great but it hasn't had the same global exposure as Bali i think marketing and storytelling around Lumbok haven't reached the same hype or like fever pitch especially for tourists that flying internationally you get comparably same nature experience you can go to Mount Aong right and still get like the same sunrise when you're renting for example so it's something that like sets Bali apart from Lombok and then if you look at the political and economic factor is also going to be very important because project in Mandalika is what we call like a top- down project right so it's not naturally grown from the bottom so I feel it's still very patchy and high development in Lombok i feel like it it's not the same bali started from like a very quaint small surfer town and then it grows so much bigger for the next three four decades but Lombok it's it feels like very top down so yeah I think that's at the moment that's what sets Bali and Lombok apart you've made some stunning observations and so what I'd like to do is to unpack some of these particulars and their relationship with each other so there's hard infrastructure soft infrastructure we've taken a look at both categories how would you say essentially is the coordination that happens is it a chicken and egg problem so we see let's go with the top down versus bottom up because I think that's a really good insight bali does have a organic approach where people who are initial let's say fans of an area they decide to come back to that area they decide to support I guess local accommodation and local food and beverage and local experience providers and then you do have this organic growth that then evolves into almost a platform that then you know people who are thinking about opening hospitality entrepreneurship develop on and that has it pros and cons too right you without the central organization that's probably why we see congestion and these other factors but because of this organic sort of growth we sometimes are a little bit behind on infrastructure whereas it it seems like Bandelica has maybe the opposite problem right they planned a lot of infrastructure and yet the organic growth hasn't turned over yet have you seen essentially any particular coordination that happens before or how does let's say the coordination of infrastructure tie together with the emergence of soft infrastructure such that the timing then gets better because the constant thing that I've observed is that wherever there's let's say top down planning it doesn't necessarily connect to the sort of the bottom up and so if those two can be actually paired together it actually form let's say the possibility but I'm also listening to what you're saying that Lumbok just doesn't seem to have enough of a distinct identity from Bali that you can get a similar experience in Bali and it's probably less expensive in terms of its you have to go to another island again another hop away okay those are really good but as an economist what sort of would be the early indicators the proxy indicators that Lombok was about to actually get everything together and maybe take off and challenge B in terms of its its its popularity in tourism you think yeah it definitely is feels like a chicken and egg problem because where should we focus on first is it the soft infrastructure or hard infrastructure but I think if you look at like a more organic tourism economy it should grow along the infrastructure and for example if you look at Luan Baju my god I love Kodo like I've been there I don't know like five times six times never get always something new to visit different snorkeling spot different and it has also like a really nice it serves a really nice example of what a top-down project looked like because first I was there in 2015 i think there was not so many boats i think people were like I remember that I hiked to the Gilawa Darat this was like one of the most stunning sunrise view I've ever seen in my life you should go there if you have time and there was just me a friend and then just a guides that's it okay something that you can't get at the moment because it's over tourism already sometimes when you look at Laban Bajjo in in June and July then you'll see a lot of people there right but then because of the hype and Lan Bajjo is very it has a very niche market right because it's diving it offers like a stunning diving spots for example and if you go like snorkeling if you go tracking you have lot of islands and so forth so with that hype came all of the government projects because I think if you look at Lwan Bajjo and then you can see that all of the top developments were being developed by the government the ports the five-star hotel if you remember last year I think they had the meeting there also the one at the at the harbor can't remember what's it name but it's also a fivestar hotel you're right I saw that too yeah there's a construction or a new hotel you have like Maldives style type of yeah like over the water type of villa and that's that that's happening because a lot of the infrastructure are being pushed by the government agenda right so that's one of the example of a top- down approach which actually is also been done in Mandelika but Mandelika is even more segmented because it's basically built around the Moto GP circuit Komodo You can go all year round except probably November till January because then you know you will have the rainy season like the wave will be like the sea will be very choppy but um okay yeah I think things should be growing more organically in in Lombok Mandelika is great but other part of Lombok is basically still untouched and I feel like you need local entrepreneur you need local government to create or like basically just work with the potential that they have in the area i see that's actually a very fascinating point and we've already bridged into the second question rama I think we can advance the slide and go into this this next question so it sounds like in certain cases the government will listen and anticipate a flourish of social media activity of consumer interest before moving ahead and developing let's say the infrastructure to facilitate larger amounts of say boats being docked in Luan Bajjo larger amounts of roads that are being built to connect the city to all the other beach areas and so what differences do you see in let's say the history and approach we talked about Bali already but do you see any differences in let's say the approach that the situation has been in Lebanon Bajjo versus Lumbok and do you see that's a more promising situation that's happened in Lebanon Bajjo or is there something that's like a microclimate in each area i specifically asked because I'm thinking that if you're going to be talking about like more micro entrepreneurs starting their own businesses it seems like Lumbok would be a more fertile area because of its proximity to Bali so you already have a kind of a high concentration of the skill knowhow and also the maybe the tools and everything there but I do recall this fact that Lambbo sits on a particularly strong port that they have like a deeper water port that allows for container to dock there and so they can have access to let's say heavier machinery or some facts about that but I'm curious to see do you see any differences in the sort of coordination of early tourism in those two areas when we want to look at this things it's like you you have to look at the core concepts or like the building blocks before we draw any kind of conclusion so first the first I think when you talk about the principles and the potential I think you need to look at the comparative advantage what does this region offer that is unique or significantly better than elsewhere and I feel like Lombok has so much of that you have the natural beauty you have the cultural heritage which is still untapped and then you have the adventure tourism and then Laan Bajjo again is a perfect example because it offers something that no region has offered especially pro probably Raja Aad but it's so expensive to go there but it attracts like a very niche market but they do it very well it's a verge of being over tourist but you see the difference between Laban Bajjo and Lombok right because Lombok offers like a wide array of things where Laban Bajjo it's a very niche attract very niche market then quote unquote it's easier to develop laban Bajjo than local and then when you look at for example complimentary infrastructure so we're not just talking about roads we're not talking just about the airport but also accommodation ation sanitation safety right i don't know now people work while they're on a holiday internet access for example so tourism toilet paper is so tourism is a composite good so it's a good and it's a and it's a composite good it's a product that includes all different kind of things you need the quality of food that's why I love Bali because the food scene is insane i love Joja but it's it's lacking on that front for me and then you need to provide safety people where do they sleep the movement of people can they rent their own car should you rely on lo local guides for example and experience is also going to be very important so any weak link in that chain the whole chain will not destroying the product but will you basically hurt what you sell and then if you look at the human capital this is something that's very important because I went to Sumba have you ever been to Sumba stunning stunning i think I've been to Sumba i was on a jalan one time and I got myself to Pula Boyo so I must have crossed either Sumba or Simba simba yeah Simba okay then I haven't been to Simba yeah Simba suma is in the southern part of the Sumboa island in and that Komodo island aripago but anyways natural beauty stunning you have one of the best hotel there in the world right you have the Nihi Sumba um but if you look at the quality of the hospitality okay do we have people with hospitality with service language skill logistic skill are the local willing to p part participate in tourism as well or you need to import people labor for Java and that happen a lot in Bali I think if you live in Bali I live in Bali part-time now for almost five years I a lot of people from eastern part of Java they migrate to Bali to work for example can we import more people to Lombok for example can they create or like they the local community could actually be a part of the tourism rather than just importing labor from other and the level of hospitality in Bali is crazy lok Sumba Laban Bajjo they're still lacking especially when you look at a more like rural part of the island now one thing that's very interesting again I went to Flores Island so I did the overland trip from Ende so basically you go from Ende and then you hike to the crater and then from end you go overland trip to Laban Bajjo that takes two three days and then we stopped by at this hill where you can see the rice terrace that looks like a spider web and then I talked to one of the one of the guide he's very young i think he's I don't know in in his elementary school or child labor yeah and I asked him "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And he said "I want to be a tourist guy." Oh wow and that is something that's powerful in a way that now the local people see that there's a potential in tourism and and then from there they develop some sort of like hospitality and they learn the language as well i try to speak English with him he can talk to me in English so it was great it was something that I feel like as a local community you also need to embrace the potential that the tourism industry would bring to your region so it sounds like there's let's say in this in the context of looking at tourism there's human capital the human capital is related to culture appreciation and also education and getting people ready for interfacing and local also local attitudes toward the tourism itself yeah do you see a different attitude in Lumbok versus Bully and its approach towards tourism not necessarily i think first of all I think it's pretty unfair to compare Bali and Lombok because Bali has been like a tourist destination since 1970s and if you look at Lombok it's already been people know Lombok max two decades I think I think Lombok is still behind in a way that it's not developed as much because Bali is 20 30 years ahead right I feel like Balin they are accustomed to having guest quote unquote like tourists right that's a part of their daily life like you see tourists everywhere you live in Changangu you go to a restaurant there's no Indonesian there everyone is like boule right a suburb and then from from having foreigners in your community you started to like act towards how do we adapt with the foreign tourists into our life this is something that's been I know been there in Bali for a generation might not happen in Lumbok because there there's not much exposure to foreign tourist as in Bali so I'm not saying that there are no good local attitude for example i'm not saying that it's just that they are in a different they're in a very different development stages in terms of adapting to the tourism that's a very powerful fact because it sounds like there is a compounding effect there where say the culture that has had a longer amount of time to integrate with the international culture becomes more adept at being able to let's say serve better and innovate faster think of how to produce better accommodations better food more more even maybe tolerance for different types of like lifestyles and such okay so basically the social infrastructure and the social culture has a root to guide how that future development how that particular group of people are going to be receptive to tourism i'll try to shrink it down so it's a compounding effect of cross transfer of culture so the longer two cultures have been in contact the more this this cross transfer of culture has happened which makes each culture essentially more aware of how to serve the other right so the expectations are more aligned this might be the one of the core principles actually of why we see greater amount of diversity in food world-class standards and hospitality is that that bullies just had a longer time to practice these traditions and these these innovations and that once started becomes difficult to catch up to because essentially you've already created a kind of a scaling effect there right you have a lot of people who are already tuned into how to actually product market and deliver services and experiences that people will already like okay would that be a fair summary or conclusion of your previous statement yeah yeah yeah i think that's a very good summary of what's going on by the way when you talk about First Contact I remember Star Trek live long and prosper but yeah I think you sum it up really great yeah okay okay so maybe that's an established principle of cultural capital so once a culture has let's say had a longer contact with another culture then there's a bit of a compounding effect that we can see there okay interesting okay question three we're moving really quickly we've seemed to touched upon question three already yeah let's go to question four question four is a great question at this point so we're trying to understand holistically and based on your experience as a researcher in economics there's been I'm not clear actually what the position these days of the Indonesian government local versus central Jakarta versus beach region on the equity equitable distribution of tourism during certain presidential administrations it seemed like was going towards more diversification let's give like each region of Indonesia a better chance at capturing tourism such as Bajjo such as Mandalika Lambok such as Joja Lake Toba so is this particular let's say direction the central government and the local governments want to work in what are the interplays that are happening that we might see or not see and how does that also take into effect I don't know how many stakeholders are in this game of course we see that there's large family wealth sovereign wealth national sovereign funds involved in making these big moves on the marketplace there's the local politics of there's the soft infrastructure so can you give us a glimpse at like top down planning actually works what's what sort of does go into as an economist i'm guessing you might possibly are very frequently invited to discussions about opening certain sectors and do you see like what are the primary principles or points in those discussions in terms of how the commitment the government wants to see in terms of developing new tourism regions okay so I think that's a great but very complex question let me start with pointing out the fact that you have to have a unique selling point for anything that you know try to sell and I feel like each destination for example Lombob it needs its own identity so it can't be just like less crowded Bali right it should be more than that and then you need to tap into a lot of different potential that I talked to you about say for example the Muslim Sasa culture for example Mount Reanjani which basically offer like one of the best hiking tracking experience in Indonesia for example and then you have all of these great serving spots for example so it needs its own identity like Joja like Laban Bajjo whichever you want to go it has to have its own identity it can't be just like less crowded Bali or less crowded Jakata I don't know is there anything like that quickly following up quickly following up i'm going to hit the iron on the spot here sorry to interrupt but this is a great fall question whose job is it to build the identity and we asked because we see that this part is confusing is it the responsibility you think of let's say influencers to discover and champion and promote an area is it the Indonesian tourism board is it just the power of local people and finding their own way on social media how do you see essentially the distribution of responsibility for creating that unique experience in each particular region and how is that generally allocated who's deciding who's going to be responsible for this yeah so I think it's a very it's a very complex intricate dynamics between the government the academics the industry and also a lot of that involve perception from the the foreign tourists for example and if you want to peel it like layer by layer for example you need the government to sets policy to provide the infrastructure offer incentive for example and most of it are like top down so you know The government in Jakarta they set the priority zones no they set Mandalika as a priority zone they develop Laban Bajjo as a priority zone for example and then there has to be coordination with the provincial government the local government essentially that needs to like be self-reliant if the project from the government from Jakarta from the central government is being phased out right so the government focuses on the hard development the infrastructure but less on the soft infra infrastructure like the culture the storytelling or like the capacity building so they provide you with the with the infrastructure but not necessarily the soft infrastructure now where does this self- infrastructure coming from and this is something that a lot of people in the academics the university the research institution they can produce some kind of like tourism road map we need master plan we need training we need to train people for hospitality for example what happen if you don't have any university or training center in that area to train for hospitality then it's not going to happen you should just rely people coming from Java migrate from Java to actually work in the island and then you know of course like the labor costs because you want people to move from Java to this island of course it's going to get much costlier than if you train your own local people to actually engage in the tourism the private industry then moved in a way that they exploit not in a bad way exploit the top down hard development that's being set by the government the training that's provided by the institution or university and private sectors are very nimble they move fast okay they test the demand in real time they respond to different like incentives right and they lead the development through packages tour packages resorts or like social media marketing or so i think you need all of those to like work together again you might think that this is a chicken and egg problem but for me I think it's something that has to be done simultaneously yeah so they have to be like aligned basically i get it you have to have cohesion between all the different uh Yes yes yeah everyone has to have the same okay this is just my observation and we want to test it out under your you know professional guidance it seems like Joja was making a leap to be a stronger tourism destination they built a huge airport they put a high quality train line from Yeah international Airport in Kulan Pro exactly kulan Progo so Ingo's the airport ingos's the moderate speed rail line to connect the airport in town but it seems like there's less demand yeah it seems like the Yeah it seems like the government's done their part to build but tourism didn't go up last time I was there the Joka airport I think it was there on the entryway and on the way out very empty it's quite empty so in a case like that also being from Jojo does it just require time or is it like we need everyone to be more cohesive and get like the dominoes lined up in in a row such that when the airport is done there's like an activation for more interest in storytelling in Joja what can we learn about that particular example experience okay first of all Joja and Bali I love both city laidback people very again Joja is always home right but they're very they're very different not in a bad way but I feel like Joja's identity is always the cultural richness but I get that you say that there's a pretty low global pull towards Joja i don't we do have a very big local tourist school tourism but not international market now when you look at into Joja then you have the rich Javanese culture we have the royal heritage we have the sultanate we have the worldclass temples we have bor we have praanan we have a lot of fashion industry the batik as well the food is not so bad and I like I feel like Bali is joja on steroid but with a very different vibe because again as I said before Bali started from a very small server village right and then it grows into a very big server hub and so on and so forth but but Jugja is more centered toward the culture which if you look at the Jenzi in the 1970s so the young people in 1970s then the young people now they're going to get attracted to what Bali is offering than JoJ is offering because you know the way that but what's being offered in Joja is it's very different right we don't have beaches two hours away the nearest beach is meh but um if you like some sort of like nature nature experience like I know natural beauty type of tourism then Joja is a little bit limited it takes you two hours to go to the beach takes you two hours to the very nice mountain and all all being left is the cultural thing if you don't like the cultural thing then there's no point of going going to Joja right so I feel like there's a very different experience that you can get from Bali and in Joja now I'm not saying that this is the end of Joja no because with all of the infrastructure and now I I don't know whether you have heard this or like we but we have a very big hiking destination in central Java we have Mount Murbabu we have Mount Prau we have you know we have Suni we have the Dang Plateau right they offer like worldclass natural beauty and after going back Bali Dogja Doja Bali also travel to Singapore for work now a lot of people are putting their trekking pole into the backpack so I'm like oh okay so people are coming for the hiking experience right and this is something that's we can offer more than just the cultural thing you can also offer the hiking and tracking destination and I think it should be big there's a lot of options and then you can package it into I don't know ring of volcano hiking trip three days two nights an experience you have a backpacking the hikers the nature photographers for example the social media influencer and I feel like when Bali started as a server village right those backpackers that went into Bali and then they stayed you can also do backpacking and stay in the mountain here that's also a good place to start you're on to something so the I'll go into a quick segue and then I'll come back right this I think appreciation of natural experiences is something that we've seen nent and trending growth so we've seen newer Gen Z travelers take a strong appreciation towards natural experiences hiking being with nature de urbanization my daughter is probably a pretty good example every time we go to another city she complains this is just like another city take her out to nature really appreciates it so on that point I think the storytelling that we're offering right here about destinations like Jojo is probably it's it sounds like it's the responsibility of the people there to actually find a way to elevate this this experience and present it but then I I'm also thinking this too so JoJ has so few international flights arriving whereas Bali has so many does it then depend upon having let's say reliable proxies foreign proxies like intermediaries that go out to transmit that message and then getting their sort of buy in to get that message out there to their tribes before this will globalize or is it entirely possible to build that from just what the local community is doing i asked because I noticed that a lot of the most popular destinations across Southeast Asia were originally I think they were championed through generations and culture capital again first they were in the lonely planet and then they were like essentially when it was on social media that were being posted on Instagram and then when Tik Tok came in so there's like this unbroken continuum of let's say travelers that are they're retelling the previous story but in the new format and I'm just wondering if let's say if there's a break in that format does the story get lost because I do remember in my first trip to Joja it seemed far more international it seemed like there was like a there there was a really diverse amount of people going on Malaboro and visiting Prama and and Boro Budora but I wonder if there was let's say a change that caused let's say a the story the through line stopped at one point and didn't really get picked up again what is your opinion about that yeah I think a lot of people coming to Joja would have already been traveling to Bali or they will travel to Bali so it's never like you're going to Indonesia to visit Joja just to see Joja i know a lot of our colleague visiting from abroad they're visiting Jugja because of course they're but I feel like Bali is always in the picture either before Jugja or after Jugja right so I feel we don't have a lot of international flight yes that's because probably it's also tied into the whole trip that they have in Indonesia right andrect I feel like a lot of times we need to create a narrative we need to create a story okay and if you want to talk to the international audiences there has to be like emotionally packaged and Bali is all I mean Bali is everywhere you see that oh okay if you love yoga then you have like a worldass destination if you want to go on a yoga retreat for example everything has to be like emotionally branded or packaged whereas dogja I think it's lacking of that for example even when you talk about like the hiking or tracking community you said ah it's basa right it's just like a normal thing for us to do but it's not but for foreign foreigners it could be lifechanging could be like okay you're hiking 2 hours 3 hours on top of this mountain and you can see like the most active volcano in the world it's like something that's there's a lot of story that I think lost in a way that you know people visit Joja because of the cultural heritage yes but in a way that it's like a side piece of visiting Bali so I think a lot of people are going so they go very early in the morning then they visit Bora Buddhur they visit Prammanan the next day they go back to Bali it's something that they do just because they want to see Borau and Prammanan so I feel like we need to create our own identity in a way that there's also as I said before there's also a lot of different potential now in terms of the natural beauty adventure experience that we can and this is the private sector that has to take the lead create a package volcano to temple trail for example just like when you're in Peru right before you go to Machu Picchu you can do this santaai trek for example you can track for three days and four nights and then you you visit Machu Picchu so this is something that I think the private sector really needs to innovate government can't provide the government provide the infrastructure government provide the airport government provide the toll road but other than that you know it's the private sector that has to lead the development but what it sounds like is this government provides infrastructure government provides support government provides let's say a vision for determining if that area should actually be a highlight area it's up to then all the intermediate let's say stakeholders from the central government the local government the local residents the early tourism the early adopters the service sector the educational institutions all to coalign there in order to make it happen that space then gives each particular sector a vision and also responsibility to make tourism happen if there's say a incompatibility somewhere along the line then the cycle breaks and it doesn't really spin over as much how would Lumbok have to do this would Lumbok have to attract a large amount of early stage pioneering entrepreneurs to push that private sector forward imagine what the story should be capture the spirit and beauty of people be able to then get let's say another round of first journalists and influencers to then report that story out and then after this flurry of information has happened then the infrastructure will be uh let's say reinvested in more capacity for airport more capacity for roads more capacity for all these other factors so it's really up to the let's say would it's up to the people of Lumbok right and the people who want to go to Lumbok to start businesses to get it to to start going and I'm not trying to scare people out here is that you're trying to shortcut with the mega project with the high-end tourism okay without building the solid fundamental okay I think first of all you need a genuine local buy in and not just employment people need to understand that tourism is a part of their daily life i'm not just working in a hotel i'm actually being a part in developing the tourism in this region so there should be local buy in and then you need local entrepreneurship probably you need to create again you need to create your own identity you need to find your own rhythm i think we need local entrepreneurship we should learn from a lot of mistakes being done in Bali for example do low impact eco-conscious development for example and then you need to like tap into the underpromoted culture sasak culture for example it has a very great potential the food the music the craft so everything needs like organic growth and and as I said before it's something that's that Bali experienced 40 50 years ago right correct it didn't need mega projects X it didn't need five stars resort attracts people by its own with its own charm and that's when we started to see the development happening organically I would agree that's a very powerful insight so if Lumbok wants to compete with Bali Lumbok needs to rise to the occasion rise to the challenge people of Lumbok need to find within their own experiences what is the story they want to tell they need to exhibit ownership and they need local government to lead those movement can't be like scatter scattered and patchy here and there i think it's the local government the provincial government needs to take the lead into kind of developing the soft the soft infrastructure yeah that's up to the people to elect the people who will become their Okay okay all right fascinating all right that's been really insightful ibu Sakar I think we've brought hopefully a lot of truth and a lot of facts and a lot of strong first principles to this discussion and we want to cut through the hype we want to cut through all the the floaty nonsensical oh just come here because of this okay so this has been a very sober discussion do you have any final thoughts that you would like to share with our channel in like your predictions or your hopes or aspirations and thank you so much you have so many different layers of experience it's very delightful you have the personal experience you've talked to the local people you have the academic and also the sort of vision to see in the long and also in the immediate what would your final remarks be for us today yeah because I think I'm a part-time professor and also part-time traveler that makes you very well qualified to do it you're getting field study that's I think we can collab on some research would be really absolutely absolutely we're help we're very happy to share facts figures we collect a lot of information that we want to have researchers analy to the people yeah yeah so my closing statement would be first of all thank you so much guys for doing this I think this is a great effort to create like an awareness of a lot of tourism and how to develop tourism in the areas like Lumbok and Joja so I feel like it needs effort from everyone as I said before we need the government we need the academics we need the private sector very much a true and unlocking potential basically is not easy as I said before you need to create a brand for your region you can't just say that Bali is the Lombok is the new Bali for example or Lombok is the less crowded right what why did you go to Lombok oh because it's less crowded version of Bali it shouldn't be like that for example like why did you go to Joja oh it's because it's something very important each region has their own brand a powerful brand and partnering with like international travel platform will also be very important and some of those we have local entrepreneurs as I said before but they have a very limited like capacity in a way that they do marketing that they the capital that they have so that's when the local government needs to push a lot of effort should be put into how do we kind of help this local entrepreneur to build their business and then of course again as I said before empower the local youth you have the cultural experience you have the spiritual experience you have local people adapting to the foreign tourism local youth can be basically it creates such a burst into the development because when you train and fund the local youth to be multilingual guides for example or digital marketer you know a lot of digital marketer in Bali comes from foreign countries why we have digital marketers from Bali for example you have the small business operators see and this is like these local community the local youth the local prneurs they should be the face of the region of the tourism they should be agree i don't know the storytellers they a lot of potential that we leave out because we rely so much on the services that brought to Bali by the foreigners so I think this is something that's again need a push from the local government should not just rely on the top down the central government because as I said before they provide the hard infrastructure they provide the incentive but that's it right yes yeah understood i think it's actually a very good point this responsibility has to be shared and there are no I think gifts that reach you 100% there's something that we all must do in order to see that outcome and the hard work is Yeah you're very sober about that there is a lot of hard work telling a local story often times is extremely challenging we've tried to within Bali promote more Balines culture be told by Bologanese people and even that surprisingly can be can be a challenge so I can't imagine how much more is up ahead but I think that's a good expectation setting that if you want to win in global tourism you have to be world class and world-class tourism requires world-class brand and the Yeah I think it's the Mahasa the youth yeah that will bring about the change that we want to see all right thank you very much Ibuer for this amazing episode of Bali Business Review and you for coming in and also utilizing our platform to get your message out thank you Mr thank you thank you
2025-05-01 12:07
