1.3 Million People Visit A Number Of Tourist Destinations In Padang

Tourists visit the Padang Beach area in Padang City, West Sumatra, Tuesday (3/5/2022) (Antara/Iggoy El Fitra)

PADANG - The Padang City Tourism and Culture Office, West Sumatra recorded as many as 1,314,756 people visited a number of tourist destinations in the local city during the Eid 1443 Hijri holiday.

Head of the Padang City Tourism and Culture Office, Eri Senjaya in Padang, Monday, May 9, said the visit was spread across all tourist attractions in the city of about 900,000 people.

The visit was seen at Air Manih Beach, Padang Beach, Pasir Jambak Beach, Al Hakim Padang Mosque, culinary tourism objects and religious tourism objects which were full of tourists, both from West Sumatra and from outside West Sumatra.

Especially at Air Manih Beach, the number of visits was recorded at 35,000 people every day during holidays and this number increased by about 800 percent from normal days.

Meanwhile, the amount of money circulating in these various areas is around Rp. 2.1 billion from transactions that occur between traders and tourists. According to him, this increase in visits occurred because the immigrants had been detained for two years from returning to their hometowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions on activities by the government.

"Alhamdulillah, this holiday season, the number of visits has increased rapidly and indeed becomes an evaluation for us in the future," said Eri.

However, based on the evaluation carried out, problems were still found, such as the large number of visitors that made everything not served properly, as well as inadequate coordination from various parties, starting from the city government, the community and business actors.

"Supervision must also be increased so that there are no more traders selling high prices, bullying and others. Thank God, we are slowly trying to fix this," he said.