Jakarta - Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said the impact of Covid-19 on tourism threatens 180 thousand workers in this sector. Because two thousand hotels are forced to stop operating.

This condition also resulted in a decrease in demand for some goods. Such as raw materials for oil and milk. Therefore, he wanted the solution of the tourism sector to be saved by increasing domestic tourist visits from the third quarter of 2020.

"Let's start together in Q3 trying to do domestic tourists," Luhut said in the National Webinar Reactivation of the Tourism Sector and the Creative Economy Entering a New Customs Adaptation, Jakarta on Wednesday (7/22/2020).

He explained that the tourism industry plummeted due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the number of foreign tourists (tourists) who came to Indonesia in May 2020 only reached 163,600 people, a sharp decrease of minus 86.90 percent compared to the same period in 2019.

"Last May, BPS recorded that travel tours fell by almost 100 percent," Luhut said

This condition also has an impact on the country's foreign exchange income from tourism. As a result, the country's foreign exchange was estimated to fall 97 percent annually. "The issue of foreign exchange tourism also dropped 97 percent (yoy) from USD 1,119 million to only USD 31 million, this is an extraordinary drop," he explained.