Can Tarnish Labuan Bajo Tourism, West Manggarai Regency Government Urged To Order Travel Agents

Tourist boats dock at Labuan Bajo. ANTARA

KUPANG - The Labuan Bajo Tourist Boat Association (Askawai) urges the West Manggarai Regency Government, NTT to strengthen regulations to control travel agents who have not been officially registered in the district.

"According to our knowledge and I believe the Tourism Office must have a record of how many unofficial travel agents are in Labuan Bajo. Therefore, it needs to be brought under control immediately," said Secretary Askawi Labuan Bajo Andri when contacted from Kupang, Antara, Tuesday, January 18 .

This was conveyed in relation to the case of an illegal travel agent from Bogor, West Java, who committed fraud by not paying the cost of a tour boat when tourists rented a boat in Labuan Bajo last week.

If registered, Andri is sure that this will not happen, tarnishing Labuan Bajo's name as a super priority tourist area. According to him, anyone who wants to build a tourism agency business must create a branch with a location in Labuan Bajo.

"This is so that it can be monitored if something unwanted happens to tourists. This proposal is part of maintaining the good name or image of Labuan Bajo itself," he added.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the NTT Travel Association (ASITA) Abed Frans assessed that this kind of phenomenon had often happened. He emphasized the existence of joint handling steps involving tourism actors or associations with local district governments.

Tourism actors or associations, he said, cannot work alone if the local government is also not active in controlling illegal or even fictitious agents.

"On the other hand, the local government can't actually control it on its own because the data for agents or official tour guides are in the respective tourism associations," said Abed.

"So collaborative work is needed to deal with issues like this, including preventing them from appearing again in the future," he said.