VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Indonesia has been officially selected as the host of the 59th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Tourism Working Group (APEC-TWG) meeting in 2022.

APEC-TWG is a forum for APEC member countries to encourage economic growth in the Asia and Pacific region with tourism.

Deputy for Resources and Institutions at the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, Wisnu Bawa Tarunajaya, said that this event could help the recovery of the tourism sector in Indonesia which was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We expect this activity to accelerate the recovery process of the tourism sector by increasing the Meeting-Incentive-Convention-Exhibition (MICE) activity," Wisnu said in a statement received on Friday.

He said that implementing APEC-TWG which is an international scale event in the country can be momentum for actors in the tourism sector and the creative economy to strengthen the confidence of foreign tourists to visit Indonesia.

Wisnu said with Indonesia as the host, they can improve the quality of foreign tourist visits in terms of expenditure and duration of visits.

"We also expect this will improve Indonesia's image by hosting intergovernmental international organization meetings," he said.

At the APEC session, Indonesia became the leading economy in the 4th priority of the APEC Workplan: Sharing Good Practices and Knowledge on incorporating Sustainable Solutions in the Spatial Planning of Tourism in Conservation and Protected Areas; and the Management of Overtourism while Considering the Destination Carrying Capacity, after competing with Singapore which is also eyeing the same position.

Meanwhile, to capitalize on Indonesia's involvement in world global forums, the Indonesian delegation represented by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy outperformed the Thai delegation who volunteered to host the 59th TWG APEC meeting in the first semester of 2022.

"We believe that together Together we can get through this crisis and restore the welfare of the APEC community through the tourism sector," Wisnu said. (RRI)