VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

North Sulawesi will hold the Bunaken Festival in Manado on July 17-20, 2019, to the tourists who share the maritime border with the Philippines.

"I am optimistic that this festival will be able to attract North Sulawesi's tourists and visit," the provincial administration's secretary of the North Sulawesi, stated here, on Wednesday.

The Bunaken Festival is 2019 included in the 100 Wonder of Events designated by the Tourism Ministry. A food festival, traditional music and dance live aboard the Bunaken Sail trip, fishing contest, coast clean-up, Underwater Photography competition, and triathlon will be featured.

The tourism ministry has named North Sumatra's tourism sector for 2019, as its tourism industry has a growth of 600 percent over the past four years.

Some 120 thousand tourists have visited North Sulawesi in 2018, rising notably from some 20 thousand in 2015, 40 thousand in 2016, and 80 thousand in 2017.

The number of domestic tourists visiting the province has increased by two million, from two million to four million. The Indonesian government had held the international maritime event from Sail Bunaken in 2009 as part of the Sail Indonesia series. 

Bunaken is an island spanning 8.08 square kilometers in the Bay of Manado, situated in the north of the island of Sulawesi. North Sulawesi is known for its Bunaken National Marine Park covering an area of ​​75,265 hectares. The five islands of Naen, Bunaken, Manado Tua, Siladen, and small islands around it.

The Bunaken national sea park has abundance of fish and coral species and at least 20 diving spots of varying depths. The park is located near the center of the Coral Triangle, a habitat offering for 390 species of coral as well as numerous fish, reptilian and marine mammalian varieties. (ant)