"The airport that we have can not yet be landed by large aircrafts."Kupang (ANTARA News) - Number of foreign tourists who have visited Komodo National Park at Labuan Bajo, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) reached 16.768 people until June.
"The data showed foreign visitors to the national park have increased from 42.000 tourists in May," said Head of Promotion Department at NTT Tourism Office, Bonaventura Rumat, here on Tuesday.
He said the growing number of foreign tourists recently was because of high promotion from the local government, as well as the confirmation that Komodo National Park was one of the new seven wonders of nature.
Therefore, the increasing number of foreign tourists in Komodo Park has affected the trade value in the region, as it enjoyed more than Rp838 billion (88.6 million US dollar).
The value was estimated as if one foreign tourist spent at least about Rp1 million (105.7 US dollar) per day for their needs, including accommodation, transportation and meal costs.
"If one tourist spends RP1 million per day, and he stays for five days for instance, so we can get the amount of money (Rp838 million)," he explained.
Due to the condition, the local people could possibly improve their economic standard of living and purchasing power in order to get higher economy level of life.
Nonetheless, the growing number of visitors from foreign countries was not supported by the well-conditioned of infrastructure in Labuan Bajo, as transportation services, either land or air, still needed to be improved as well.
He said there were three three-star hotels and one four-star hotel in the area.
"The airport that we have can not yet be landed by large aircrafts," he said.
Apart from the lack of facility and infrastructure units, he said, the local government would develop the tourism object, making the visitors comfortable in spending holiday in Komodo Park.
(Uu.F013/KR-BSR/A014)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
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