SEMARAPURA, BALIPOST.com – Tourist visits to Nusa Penida is quite high, especially to Lembongan and Jungut Batu. Such conditions are acknowledged by Headman of Jungut Batu, Made Gede Suryawan, where everyday there are quite a lot of tourists coming to travel to Jungut Batu. As his observation, everyday there are around 3,000 tourists coming down from the boat at Jungut Batu Harbor. Most of them are foreign tourists from China. However, the high number of visits has temporarily not been subject to levies.
Since levies by customary villages were stopped last year, practically tourists coming down there are not subject to any levies temporarily. More seriously, thousands of the tourists coming on holiday to Jungut Batu-Lembongan do not stay overnight. They come in the morning, and return to Sanur at noon or in the afternoon. “This is just ordinary days. During high season such as June, July, August and September, the visit is quite booming,” said Suryawan, recently.
He hoped the Regional Regulation on Levies can be fully implemented in order that tourist visits to Jungut Batu and Lembongan can generate regional income.
Meanwhile, the Klungkung Tourism Office continues to discuss about various regulations to attract levies from tourists traveling to Klungkung, especially to Nusa Penida tourism area. After giving birth to the Regional Regulation, the Tourism Office is preparing regent regulation as its derivative regulation in the effort to prevent the widening of leakage of regional revenue from tourism sector.
Head of the Klungkung Tourism Office, Nengah Sukasta, recently said that after the turmoil in regulating levies by customary villages due to non-legal status, the regional government had issued Regional Regulation No. 5/2018 concerning Regional Levies. There is already a levy value set at IDR 25,000 for adult tourists and IDR 15,000 for children.
The regulation cannot yet be fully applied to the tax object because the regulation has been reduced in the form of regent regulation being finalized in the Legal Section of the Klungkung district government.
Sukasta added that in the collection process, as instructed by Regent of Klungkung Nyoman Suwirta, his office will draft good cooperation with boat owners. It is meant not to make direct levies to tourists in the Nusa Penida tourism area because such way is considered disturbing. “We have received a lot of input from boat operators. We are designing how the system is going so that it runs well and does not violate the law,” said Sukasta.
He admitted that before the regent regulation is issued, his agency cannot charge any levy and neither can customary and administrative villages. On that account, this is very urgent in order that it can be realized immediately. (Bagiarta/balipost)
