The local people do not see much profit. The majority ends up working for the investors for less than the provincial minimum wage.
By
ANTONIUS PONCO ANGGORO
·5 minutes read
Kompas/Heru Sri Kumoro
A woman fetches water from a saltwater well on Sept. 1 in Papagarang village of Komodo district, West Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara. The saltwater is used to wash clothing and for bathing. The villagers must buy clean water for cooking and drinking, as no freshwater springs exist in the arid area.
The sky over the hilly Waecicu Beach in Labuan Bajo, West Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara, slowly turned from blue to red as the sun turned in for the day on Aug. 28. Jefri Warut, 25, and a dozen or so foreign travelers ignored the thick dust rising beyond the hills and enjoyed the view of the setting sun.
Trucks carrying construction materials traveled to and from the area, causing thick dust to float in the air. Since 2013, a number of investors have been constructing starred hotels on Waecicu Beach.
The 500-meter-long white sandy beach is beginning to be overrun by hotels. No one can enjoy the beach, which should have been public, unless they are hotel guests.
“No one except hotel guests may enter!”
Such warning signs are put up on one side of a fence leading to the hotel premises for everyone to see. They seem to reinforce the disparity between hotel guests and the general public.
Marcelus Tantur, manager of the Hotel Sylvia that is located on Waecicu’s shores, said that public access to the beach was closed to ensure the safety and comfort of hotel guests. In order to visit Waecicu Beach, Marcelus said, the local people would have to wait for the government to build an access road to the beach.
“There are no more public beaches in Labuan Bajo. Everything is for the investors. We are like strangers in our own land,” Jefri Warut said.
Public access to the beach was closed to ensure the safety and comfort of hotel guests.
Pede Beach, another iconic tourist spot in Labuan Bajo, will soon follow Waecicu’s lead. Since 2016, the public beach where former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono watched the Sail Komodo event on Sept. 14, 2013, has been placed under investors’ management.
Observing this trend, the local people are reacting. Protests have been held several times to maintain local beaches as the last public space for the Labuan Bajo people. “Finally, the government and investors promised that Pede would remain a public beach,” said Marsel Agot, a community leader in West Manggarai.
Investor attraction
Following Sail Komodo 2013, many local and foreign investors set their eyes on Labuan Bajo, an entry point for the famed Komodo National Park. Labuan Bajo’s Jl. Soekarno-Hatta is one example. Part of the land along the road, where a fishing village is located, is now controlled by investors. The land used to cost only Rp 12,500 (US$0.93) per square meter in 2000, but prices have surged beyond Rp 1 million per square meter since 2013.
Some investors lease land from local landowners at absurdly high prices. In order to lease land the size of a badminton court for one year, investors can shell out hundreds of millions of rupiahs.
“Many investors in Labuan Bajo are foreigners. They can own land, as they are married to locals or they entrust locals to purchase land under their own names, although the foreigners are the actual owners. There are also domestic landowners, mostly from Jakarta and some from Bali,” said Silvester Wanggel, head of the West Manggarai branch of the Indonesian Hotels and Restaurants Association (PHRI).
The West Manggarai investment board’s data shows that total foreign investment in the local tourism sector was Rp 309 billion from 43 investors in 2017, while domestic investment was Rp 89.3 billion from 59 investors in 2017, with greater returns than the amount recorded.
West Manggarai tourism agency secretary Pius Baut said that it was not possible for the government to ban investment, as it contributed significantly to local recurring revenue. In 2016, West Manggarai tourism contributed Rp 13 billion in recurring revenue to the local revenue of Rp 860 billion.
As for manpower, the tourism industry created 5,729 jobs of the 106,993 total jobs in West Manggarai. The agriculture and fisheries sector still contributed the biggest job creation with 78,537 jobs.
The West Manggarai government said the regency had made many efforts to ensure that the local population could enjoy the burgeoning tourism industry in the area, which was separated from Manggarai regency in 2006. “We have provided trainings and funding assistance. How to move forward from there depends on the locals’ willingness and creativity. The regency’s job is merely to encourage the people,” West Manggarai regency administration assistant II Marthin Ban said.
Some people had opened simple tour and travel agencies, offering package tours to West Manggarai and Komodo National Park.
“However, there is a concern here. If there are too many of these travel agencies, more than the ideal number compared to the volume of travelers, their sustainability will be threatened. Furthermore, the number of travel agencies offering tour packages in Labuan Bajo and Komodo National Park is also increasing,” said Donatus Matur of the Association of Greater Manggarai Tour and Travel Agencies.
The agriculture and fisheries sector still contributed the biggest job creation with 78,537 jobs.
On the sea, the investors also offer tour boats to serve travelers wanting to visit Komodo National Park. These boats are full of tourist-pampering facilities, including dive equipment, and are often brought in from outside West Manggarai.
As the number of travelers increases, with 83,712 travelers visiting in 2016 – almost three times the volume in 2012 – the investors’ profit also increases. A restaurant and hotel on Jl. Soekarno-Hatta, for example, can make up to Rp 1 billion in monthly profits every year, especially during the tourist season between July and September. Half of this profit pads the wallets of the hotel and restaurant owners.
The local people do not see much profit. The majority ends up working for the investors for less than the provincial minimum wage. Furthermore, the local people often have to compete with human resources from outside West Manggarai on the job market.
If the government continues to neglect the local people who are marginalized by the very same investors it prioritizes, Marsel Agot said that poverty would never be resolved and social envy would increase. In the end, the situation could easily trigger social conflict.
