Reopening The Tourism Sector Amid The COVID-19 Pandemic, Yogyakarta Will Not Be In A Rush

Yogyakarta Monument Area (Photo: Jogjaprov.go.id Website)

JAKARTA - The Yogyakarta Special Region Government will gradually make efforts to reopen their sluggish tourism sector due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Head of the DIY COVID-19 Task Force, Biwara Yuswantana, emphasized that his party would not be in a hurry to reopen tourism in the warm city without careful calculations and preparation.

Biwara said the Yogyakarta government is currently still carrying out the trial and simulation stage to ensure that tourist locations including hotels, restaurants, shopping places, and other supporting facilities are ready to reopen and be visited by tourists even though the COVID-19 pandemic is still happening.

Later, he continued, there would be a verification and law enforcement team tasked with assessing the readiness of these places, especially the readiness to implement health protocols.

"There is a verification team and there is a field of law enforcement that carries out verification to hotels, to objects to assess, evaluate, the extent of the readiness of the devices needed for implementing health protocols," Biwara said as quoted from the website www.covid19 .go.id, Monday, July 27.

In addition, Biwara said that business actors in the tourism sector and the community would later be given education and socialization by utilizing television and social media. The goal is that people can adapt to new habits when the tourism industry starts operating again.

He also said that the Yogyakarta government is currently developing an application called the Jogja Pass to monitor and record tourists who enter tourist sites.

"If it's 50 percent (capacity, red), it will be closed because it has been systematically recorded," he said.

Furthermore, Ari Julianno Gema, spokesman for the COVID-19 Impact Management Task Force, Ari Julianno Gema, said that later the local government's efforts to mobilize the tourism sector will be assisted by the central government. In addition to labor-intensive programs intended for workers in the tourism sector, there will be stimulus assistance prepared for prospective tourists.

"For example, we give a discount on airplane tickets. Then there are also vouchers for restaurants and hotels so that later domestic tourists will be interested in going there," said Ari.

Even so, he still reminded all regions that would reopen their tourist attractions to pay attention to the implementation of health protocols so that new clusters of COVID-19 would not occur.

Tourism service providers and tourists, continued Ari, must follow the guidelines in the Cleanliness, Healthy, Safety, and Environment (CHSE) program owned by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy. By following these guidelines, it is hoped that the quality and comfort when traveling will increase.

"When the health protocol is implemented properly, strictly, now, they (tourists, ed) will feel safe," he concluded.