ABOUT THE PROJECT

In Indonesia, the recent economic transformation from agriculture to manufacturing and services is facing serious problems, largely due to a lack of skilled human capital and unsustainable use of resources. The tourism sector reveals similar problems where despite projections of growing numbers of foreign visitors to 20 million by 2020, uncontrolled growth and careless profit seeking are emerging at the cost of human, natural and cultural resources. Fragmentation of policies, regulations and approaches in the absence of modern management capacity is rendering tourism a most vulnerable sector to myopic views of tourism as an easy driver of a cash economy of 9.1% of GDP and a ruthless earner of foreign exchange of $10 billion in 2013.Despite the Government’s resort to conventional ecotourism, hoping that it would lead to sustainable conservation of bio-cultural resources and improved living standards of rural people, such rather univocal strategy falls short of solving the multifaceted goal to attain sustainable tourism conserving bio-cultural diversity while developing the economy. In order to reverse the process of mismanagement of the tourist sector and its negative impacts on the Indonesian society and resources, there is an urgent need for modern programs in Indonesia’s higher education system to train specialised managers and scientists who are capable to implement a comprehensive approach of integration of eco-, ethno-, cultural- and community-based tourism at all levels in order to understand and solve the current complex problems of tourism in Indonesia. Information about the project can be seen in the following EU website.