Indonesia reformulating halal tourismstrategy after missing 2018 targets

Photo: A tourist takes a selfie in front of Fatahillah Museum in Jakarta's OldTown, a popular tourist spot in Jakarta, Indonesia August 2, 2017.REUTERS/Beawiharta

JAKARTA - Indonesia missed its halaltourism targets last year and needs to reformulate its strategy to boost thesector, Riyanto Sofyan, Chairman of Indonesia’s Team for AcceleratedDevelopment of Halal Tourism told Salaam Gateway.

“So far we have been relying too much onroadmaps that are created based on secondary research that only see potentialdata, and use estimates,” said Sofyan.

“If we can look at primary research anddata taken directly from consumers, industry players will be sure about how bigthe market actually is,” he added.

The Muslim-friendly travel sector missedits 2018 targets in areas including share of foreign exchange contribution toGDP, number of halal-certified hotels, and increase in dedicated industryworkforce.

The sector was around 4-5 percent short ofits 25 percent target of total tourism foreign exchange contribution to GDP,bringing in only around $5 billion last year. The 730 halal-certified hotelswas 270 off-target, and the industry’s dedicated workforce of 536,693 was farbelow the aim of 805,039, which would have represented 20.14 percent of thetotal tourism labour pool. Additionally, the more than 800,000 mosques crossthe country are in dire need of proper ablution facilities for women.

REFORMULATING STRATEGY

Indonesia’s halal tourism authority wouldhave to move away from marketing its destinations to big source markets Chinaand India because their Muslim populations, although sizeable, do not travelabroad often, said Sofyan.

“We should focus on markets like Malaysia,Pakistan instead. We shall re-map the target markets,” he said.

The team has also learned it would need adifferent digital focus for the Muslim-friendly sector.

“We didn’t design a dedicated digitalmarketing and platform for halal tourism, which is entirely different forconventional tourism,” Sofyan said.

He admitted that when the halal tourismteam started its work in March 2016, it used a quick-win strategy to improvedestinations that were already popular with tourists. It depended heavily onpositioning the popular Bali island of Lombok as the backbone of Indonesia’sMuslim-friendly tourism.

“Back in 2016 when we tuned up a little bitof Lombok’s infrastructure, its Muslim visitor number rose 40 percent to 1.4million in 2015. Unfortunately, many natural disasters, especially in Lombok,hurt our halal tourism. Muslim visitor numbers dropped about 100,000 permonth,” he said. The disasters hit non-Muslim visitor numbers equally hard.

Indonesia would also need to strengthen theentire Muslim-friendly travel sector ecosystem, including the halal foodindustry, said Sofyan.

This is already being addressed, with theestablishment of the Halal Product Assurance Agency (BPJPH) in 2017 to overlookthe work of mandatory certification and labeling of all halal products fromthis year. The government agency took over from the Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI),which for decades was the country’s only halal certifier, in a move to increaseaccountability and transparency.

Sofyan wants to see a faster speed ofchange, calling on BPJPH to accelerate the certification of halal food outlets,only 3 percent of which are halal-certified, he said. Indonesia is also behindother markets in certifying halal processed foods, he said, comparing thecountry to Thailand, Australia and Brazil, all of which have substantial halalchicken and meat exports.

He hopes the new Indonesia Muslim TravelIndex (IMTI) that was launched in December will help better inform thecountry’s halal tourism strategy.

NEW INDEX

The IMTI, built in partnership withMastercard and CrescentRating, focuses on four strategic areas?access,communication, environment, and services (ACES)?for 10 regions: Aceh, RiauIslands, West Sumatra, Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta, East Java,South Sulawesi and Lombok.

It uses a score scale from 1 to 100. Theaverage IMTI score for 10 regions is 50, with the best regions being Lombok(58), Aceh (57), and Jakarta (56).

Lombok scored 59 for communication, thehighest among the regions, because of its Muslim visitor guides, stakeholdereducation, language capabilities of tour guides and digital marketing.

The island also came up tops forenvironment, scoring 80 for its domestic tourist arrivals, wifi coverage atairports and commitment to halal tourism.

Capital city Jakarta is best for air, rail,sea and road access, with a score of 96.

Central Java topped the regions forservices, scoring 58 for areas including halal restaurants and hotels, andMuslim-friendly attractions.

“Since last June, we have reached out tolocal governors to improve their region’s scores in each focus area. We havealso been working closely with stakeholders and investing in relevant areas,”said Sofyan.

He said that he and his team have engagedwith stakeholders and industry players such as national carrier Garuda to servehalal-certified food on board their flights. Garuda previously offered halalfood but its catering processes were not certified.

(Reporting by Yosi Winosa; Editing by EmmyAbdul Alim emmy.alim@refinitiv.com)

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