The Lake Toba Authority Implementing Agency invites students living away from home to promote Lake Toba as a national super priority tourist destination.
"We can no longer be half-hearted. Promotion must be aggressive, we need a big event to attract foreign tourists," said BPODT President Director Jimmy Panjaitan via telephone in Medan, Sunday.
According to him, promotional efforts must be carried out aggressively and boldly, one of which is through international events that can attract world attention.
Lake Toba covers an area of 145 square kilometers and surrounds seven districts in North Sumatra, namely Simalungun, Samosir, Toba, Humbang Hasundutan, North Tapanuli, Karo, and Dairi.
The expanse of blue lake water is a beautiful sight when visiting Batak land, with towering pine trees adding to the freshness of the surrounding air.
Lake Toba has been designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as the 209th UNESCO Global Geopark (UGG) in Paris, France, Tuesday, July 2, 2020.
"Until now, we have also continued to try to convince investors to invest, while we are fighting for changes to the investment period that investors want to be better," said Jimmy.
Member of Commission VII of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Lamhot Sinaga, said that a more progressive promotional strategy was important in front of around 300 students from the Indonesian Christian University (UKI) in Jakarta.
His party has analyzed the tendencies of various countries that have succeeded in developing tourism through different approaches, including optimizing sports events or sports tourism.
"If we look at Italy or Japan, they have regular international class agendas. We still need to make many improvements, especially in making tourism a competitive industry," Lamhot explained.
It was recorded that around 300 UKI students who are members of the National Batak Student Association (Imaibana), the majority of whom are migrants from the Lake Toba area, held a public dialogue 'Looking at the Future of Lake Toba Tourism' at the UKI Faculty of Law Building.
