PHRI Hopes That The Revocation Of PPKM Will Make Tourism Places In Batu Malang City Even More Crowded

Photo: Doc. Antara

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) of Batu City stated that the revocation of the policy for the Implementation of Community Activity Restrictions (PPKM) is expected to increase tourist visits in the area.

Chairman of the Batu City Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) Sujud Hariadi said hoteliers welcomed the revocation of the PPKM policy carried out by President Joko Widodo.

"Hopefully, with the revocation of this PPKM, it can increase tourist visits to Batu City," said Sujud, quoted from Antara, Tuesday, January 3.

Sujud explained that the increase in tourist visits is expected not only for people who travel to Batu City, but also for people who stay at hotels spread across the area.

However, he continued, it must be admitted that there is a pandemic due to the spread of the Corona virus and the PPKM policy has an impact on people's purchasing power. The COVID-19 pandemic has an impact on income received by the public.

"This two-year pandemic, of course, has resulted in a decrease in people's purchasing power, including during the PPKM yesterday many were unable to work, only half of the salary received, or some even lost their jobs due to the pandemic," he said.

He added that currently the government's policy to revoke the PPKM is expected to be a turning point in the revival of the tourism sector in the Batu City area, and hopes that the world recession will not have an impact on Indonesia.

"Hopefully the impact of the world's recession will not reach Indonesia, so that people's purchasing power will not decrease too much. So that the City of Batu is more visited by tourists from day to day, hopefully in 2023 the era of tourism revival in Batu City," he said.

Based on data from the Batu City Tourism Office, throughout 2022, there were approximately 7.4 million tourists who came to the city. The number of visits is higher than the target set, which is five million visits.

It was recorded that in the period January 1 to December 31, 2022, there were 7,445,799 tourists visiting Batu City. In the first quarter, the number of tourist visits to Batu City was 1,676,005 tourists.

This figure has increased in the second and third quarters, each of which is 2,287,814 tourists and in the third quarter of 2022 it has reached 2,030,132 tourists. Meanwhile, in the fourth quarter, temporary data entered more than one million tourist visits.

Thus, in 2022, in the Batu City area, the number of tourist visits is estimated to be more than 7.5 million visits.