REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PADANG -- The provincial government of West Sumatra targets the number of tourist visits in 2024 of 13.5 million people, increasing from the 2022 target of 8.2 million visits. The head of the West Sumatra Tourism Department Luhur Budianda in Padang on Monday (22/1/2024), said the increase in the tourist visit target was in line with the realization of the 2023 visit target, which reached 137 percent more.

“Of the 8.2 million target, 11.2 million tourists visited Sumbar during 2023. From this realisation data we raise the target by about 20 per cent to 13.5 million visits,” he said. Suhur said the target was believed to be achievable assuming normal transport access, no exceptional events affecting politics, economics and security that greatly affected the motivation and movement of tourists in carrying out the trip.

He said that in order to realize the target, it has collected data on tourism activities or agendas organized by each district and city. Also the provincial and community tourism agenda. “Of the 131 'events' entered, we have curated and sorted them into 78 'events' summarized in the Sumbar 2024 Tourism Calendar,” Luhur said.

In addition, he said, the Sumbar Tourism Department also changed the scheme for calculating the number of tourist visits from initially manual to app-based. “We partnered with PT Telkomsel to create a PETA Sumbar app to get more accurate tourist visit data,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Governor of West Sumatra, Mahyeldi called on all OPDs in the area to actively seek opportunities to bring the national agenda to Sumbar as one of the strategies to increase the number of tourist visits. “Sumbar has proven successful in hosting a number of national and international 'events' with thousands of participants in 2023. It's capital to bring national and international level 'events' to Sumbar in 2024,” he said.

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