Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy (Menparekraf) Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno revealed that foreign tourist visits to Indonesia experienced a significant spike in June 2022, reaching 350,000 visits, an increase of almost 2,000 percent compared to June 2021, based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS). This positive growth is expected to further increase economic activity and create job opportunities in the tourism sector and the country's creative economy. "Accumulatively, the number of foreign tourists visiting Indonesia in January-June 2022 has reached almost 750,000 or an increase of almost 1,000% compared to the same period in 2021," said the Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy in his official statement, Tuesday, August 23, 2022. The increase in foreign tourist visits was also accompanied by an increase in the room occupancy rate or hotel occupancy in June 2022, which Sandiaga revealed, on average it had reached more than 50% or an increase of 11.7% compared to June 2021. Sandiaga added that with the increase in the number of realized foreign tourists visiting in 2021 by 1.65 million visits and the 2022 projection of 1.8 to 3.6 million visits. "So, next year, the target of tourist visits is 3.5 million to seven million visits," he said. Not only the increase in the number of tourists, exports of the creative and digital economy have also increased. The value of creative economy exports tends to be stable during 2017-2020, but will increase in 2021. The value of creative economy exports at the end of 2020 reached USD 18.78 billion and increased in 2021 to USD 23.9 billion or 10% of the total national export value. The largest contribution of creative economy exports came from fashion commodities at 61.6%, 31.3% from craft commodities, and 6.9% from culinary commodities. The economic and creative export trend that accelerated in 2021 will continue until 2022. It is projected that creative economy exports will reach USD 25.14 billion this year. The main focus in increasing economic and creative exports is in three commodities, namely fashion, crafts, and culinary. "However, it does not rule out the possibility of fostering other commodities in accordance with market trends and demands, such as the film, music, applications and games sub-sectors that are on the rise," said Sandiaga. In addition, Menparekraf also targets to increase the number of digital startups. That is 200 startups this year and increasing to 300 startups next year.
