Tourism Entrepreneurship Opportunities In Indonesia's Cultural And Natural Tourism

Indonesia has considerably rich natural and cultural tourism destinations, including Samosir Island. This island, situated at the centre of Lake Toba, is recognized as the backbone of tourism growth in Lake Toba areas due to the regular tourist arrival increase and the abundance of tourist attractions. The local government continues to enhance tourism sustainability by optimizing tourism entrepreneurship, identifying and exploiting business opportunities. In this sense, recognition of opportunities comes first before business exploitation. However, little attention has been given to this pathway. Hence, this study was conducted to identify the tourism business opportunities that can be opened and developed in this regency. To better understand the study's aim, the descriptive qualitative approach was conducted by interviewing the head of the tourism business of the regency tourism and culture office. The results showed that a wide range of opportunities related to tourism entrepreneurship in this regency could be developed, such as food and beverage, accommodation, tourism attractions, transportation, souvenir business, entertainment and recreation business, MICE business, tour guides and travel, and wellness treatment business. Of all enterprises mentioned, the food & beverage business and souvenir centres are considerable potentials to develop as only small numbers of firms that meet the tourists' preferences and standards are currently found on this island. The study recommendation can help the local authorities in designing policies for the development of tourism entrepreneurship and the tourism industry. However, there are some limitations of the study which can be the impetus for future research, namely the scope of the study is only in Samosir Island, without covering other areas in Lake Toba and the authors identified tourism business opportunities from the perspective of local government, without covering the perspectives from the other related stakeholders.