SUSTRA LOWIS: STRENGTHENING TOURISM INDUSTRY TO REALIZE INDONESIA AS GLOBAL MARITIME AXIS

Abstract

Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago country and it has coastline stretching from Sabang to
Merauke with more than 17.500 islands. As a maritime country, Indonesia has potential on marine
tourism which can be a backbone of economy amid the global economic turmoil. However, the
performance of Indonesian tourism has not shown satisfactory results if viewed from the data of
foreign tourist visits which is left behind with neighboring countries. The implementation of
SUSTRA LOWIS (Sustainable Tourism Strategy Based on Local Wisdom) is expected to increase the
role of Indonesia's marine tourism sector to the economy by improving the quality of tourism
management and human resources. Development of tourism must involve the role of society, but
government is less concerned about it.The purpose of this paper is to create innovations to enhance
the role of marine tourism industry to Indonesian economy, explaining that Indonesia has tremendous
maritime potential and can be utilized for the collective interest and provide an overview to the
government on programs that can be implemented for the marine tourism industry. This type of
research is descriptive analysis. The study aims to analyze and describe the implementation of
SUSTRA LOWIS as an effort to realize Indonesia as the world’s maritime axis. Data were collected
through observation and literature studies. The research concluded that SUSTRA LOWIS
(Sustainable Tourism Strategy Based on Local Wisdom) has five main sectors for the development of
marine tourism those are, Tourism Management Sector (TMS), Tourism Training Sector (TTS),
Business Improvement Sector (BIS), Technology Based Tourism Sector (TBTS), and Maritime
Education Sector (MES). These five sectors have programs that can support the development of
marine tourism thoroughly and sustainably to realize Indonesia as the world’s maritime axis.