Malang Prepares Ceramics Tourism Village

Tempo Interactive, Wednesday, 17 March, 2010 | 20:45 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Malang:The Malang Cooperation and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Office is preparing the Dinoyo Ceramics Center as a Ceramics tourism village.

The aim is to increase the sales of ceramics and also to increase the number of tourists visiting Malang.

According to the Head of the Malang Cooperation and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Office, Asih Tri Rachmi, in the last five years the sales of Dinoyo ceramics have kept on decreasing.

“This is because they could not compete with imported ceramics from China,” said Asih, on Wednesday (17/3).

Asih is targeting that starting from mid-2010, the tourism village could start to operate after the issuance of the decision letter from the East Java Governor, Soekarwo.

Even though it is still not official, craftspeople at the Dinoyo Ceramics Center are already running the tourism village program.

When visitors come, there are local guides available.

Besides that, they can also watch ceramics-making by the craftspeople.

“Tourists can also try to make ceramics,” said Tri Asih.

The Malang government has allocated funds of Rp450 million for the tourism village.

Of this amount, Rp150 million has been allocated to build show houses, fixing the entrance gate and repairing production houses used for workshops.

Meanwhile Rp300 million is being used to train the industrial center’s personnel, raw material provision assistance, local guide training and comparative studies with other tourism villages.

In the Dinoyo ceramics center there are more than 100 craftspeople.

Twenty of them have joined the Dinoyo Ceramics Maker Association.

“We are ready to become a tourism village,” said Ahmad Suhariono, one of the craftspeople.

Besides the Dinoyo ceramic center, there are two other centers to be transformed into tourism villages.

The two centers are the batik industry center in Bandung Rejosari Village and the tempe industry center in Sanan Village.

BIBIN BINTARIADI