Greening tourism: Ministry of Tourism, ILO start implementation of project to help create green jobs

Helping communities with high tourism potential to benefit from green tourism through “green jobs” is a new initiative by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, supported by the UN Indonesia’s Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE).

Last week, over 30 government officials, university lecturers and community representatives from across Indonesia’s super priority tourism destinations participated in a training of trainers event organized by the Ministry and the International Labour Organization (ILO) to learn about how to better prepare communities and tourism graduates for green economy opportunities.

“Green jobs are good for people, good for the environment and good for the economy – but it requires a mindset change: moving from consumption to conservation of resources,” said Martini M. Paham, Deputy Minister for Human Resources and Institutions at the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy.

Participants said that they will incorporate what they have learned into their work.

“The participatory approach combined with the principles of green and blue economy can inject sustainability principles into training more effectively,” said Endang Komesty Sinaga, a lecturer from the Bandung Tourism Polytechnique, who also supports dedicated tourism villages in West Java. 

Running green meetings is good for the environment and also for business, since many companies are looking to organize more environmentally friendly corporate events, said Muhammad Arfin from the Makassar Tourism Polytechnique. “By transmitting this understanding and the related know how to those working in tourism as well as to students studying tourism will create real opportunities for them to meet demand for green corporate tourism,” he explained.

Ana Tri Astuti from Kabondalem Kidul tourism village near Yogyakarta said that her community tourism project, focused on providing traditional food catering, has benefitted from green tourism already. “Customers in the high-end market segment appreciate and are willing to pay extra for the use of traditional packaging materials rather than plastic,” she said. “Being able to offer it has helped our competitiveness.”

The Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy expects that this collaboration initiative can be continued to support the development of sustainable and inclusive tourism in Indonesia, Ms Paham explained. 

The initiative scales up a previous ILO pilot project, which ended in 2023, and which capacitated tourism lecturers at higher education institutions in North Sulawesi to work with coastal communities and prepare them to become green and blue tourism entrepreneurs. Read more about the impact of that project on the livelihoods of the communities here.  It also builds on a regional meeting that took place late last year “Transitioning to a Green and Blue Economy. Learning from the lessons of North Sulawesi.”

“The ILO, alongside others in the UN family, remains committed to supporting the Government of Indonesia as it works to expand green tourism through innovation and partnerships,” said Simrin Singh, ILO Director for Indonesia and Timor Leste. “We are very pleased to see the commitment of the Ministry to scale up our earlier pilot initiatives. These will lead to decent job creation throughout the ecosystem of this vital sector, having a positive spillover impact for the people of Indonesia as well as for our fragile planet”.