Fires In The Mount Semeru Area Have No Effect On Tourist Activities To Bromo

Archival photos. Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park area. (ANTARA/Vicki Febrianto)

The land and forest fires (karhutla) that occurred in the Mount Semeru area, in the Lumajang Regency area, did not affect tourism activities on Mount Bromo, East Java. Head of Administration Section of the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park (TNBTS) Septi Eka Wardhani said tourist visits to Mount Bromo were still running as usual without being affected by land and forest fires. "There is no impact on tourist visits to Mount Bromo," said Septi in Malang City, East Java, Antara, Wednesday, August 23. According to him, until now the number of tourist visits to Mount Bromo has been relatively stable, with an average number of tourists as many as 1,123 per day in the past week. "For the last total of one week or 14-22 August 2023 period, 10,105 tourist visits were recorded, or an average of 1,123 people per day," he said. The TNBTS Center is still limiting daily visits to the national park area. Per day, the number of visitors is limited to 2,751 people, or it is not opened 100 percent according to the total capacity of the region. Septi explained, although until now the fire that occurred in the Mount Semeru area had no impact on tourism activities in the Mount Bromo area, visitors or tourists were asked to be careful. In addition, he continued, visitors were also asked not to trigger land and forest fires considering that currently the conditions in the Mount Bromo area are very dry. He hopes that visitors can work together to protect the area. "We ask visitors to cooperate not to trigger accidents. Do not throw cigarette butts or light matches carelessly, considering Bromo's condition is currently very dry," he said. He added, related to the process of extinguishing fires in the Mount Semeru area, it is currently being carried out. The TNBTS Center together with a number of related elements have sent a team to extinguish and control the spread of fire. However, according to him, there are still a number of hotspots that have not been extinguished because the location of the source of the fire is quite far away and it is not easy to reach a joint team from the Rabupani Village Fire Care Community (MPA), Ngadas Village and Argosari Village, TNI and Polri. "For extinguishing, there are still hotspots that cannot be reached because the location is quite difficult," he said.

The Mount Bromo area is one of the leading tourist destinations in East Java. In 2022, it was recorded that 318,919 tourists were visited, divided into 310,418 domestic tourists and 8,501 foreign tourists. Of the total number of tourist visits to Bromo throughout 2022, there was Non-Tax State Revenue (PNBP) reaching Rp11.65 billion, which increased when compared to the previous year which was Rp4.85 billion.