Increasing the Level of Meat Village Tourism

Toba, Jan 12th 2024 - PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminum or INALUM seeks to encourage the eco-cultural tourism sector by supporting the tourism transformation of Meat Toba Village, North Sumatra. INALUM realized this by creating social innovations in the village and being optimistic that the village could become a national scale Tourism Village.

INALUM Corporate Secretary Mahyaruddin Ende said that INALUM chose Meat Village because the village was considered to need collaboration to transform better. INALUM has created several innovation programs and it is hoped that this will encourage the village to become better.

"The choice of Meat Village as the location for the social innovation program was based on the complexity of the problems experienced, Meat's lagging behind compared to other villages on the banks of Lake Toba. When compared with other villages, such as Pakkodian, Parapat, Lumban Bulbul, and Lumban Silintong, Meat Village does not yet have good tourism management capabilities even though the natural potential it has is very beautiful. "So creating a program in Meat Village is a form of INALUM's commitment to supporting the Government regarding the Lake Toba Priority Tourism Destination," said Mahyaruddin.

INALUM chose Meat Village because of 4 aspects of the issue. First, the income of the Meat Village community is still below the Toba Samosir UMK, which is IDR 2,459,320.00 (2019 UMK) and this is because the majority of the community work as farmers with income originating from harvests. Second, low income makes Meat Village one of the villages with high cases of stunting. Third, the level of public awareness of the environment is low where the majority of people do not have waste storage and management facilities so that the waste is thrown directly under bridges or bodies of water. Fourth, there is already a Tourism Awareness Group (Pokdarwis) which has been formed since 2017 but is not yet active.

Meat Village eco-cultural tourism is PT Inalum's flagship community development program which was developed as a form of implementation of the vision & mission of PT Inalum's Hydroelectric Power Plant, namely "To Become a Leading Global Company Based on Environmentally Friendly Integrated Aluminum". This program was designed as a response to the findings of the social, economic, environmental and cultural vulnerabilities of Meat Village in the 2019 Social Mapping Study. Since starting in 2020, the Meat Village Eco-cultural tourism program has had a significant impact on the lives of the Meat Village community, both in the economic, social, environmental and welfare fields.
Since 2020, simultaneously and sustainably, INALUM has encouraged strategic village development programs, including: 

First Year 2020
INALUM is building a Dance Studio both in terms of building infrastructure (buildings), increasing teacher human resources, and establishing a dance group.

Year 2021
Preparing Cultural Tourism by promoting culture through dance, replicating other village activities, and preparing tourism standards according to CHSE

Year 2022
Preparing tourism facilities by conducting hospitality training for Pokdarwis members, providing assistance with homestay facilities, and providing dance studio facilities and infrastructure

Year 2023
Preparing for Ecotourism by conducting training in bricket making, waste processing, establishing family friendly tourism, and building PLTPH as a manifestation of New Renewable Energy

2024 (Strategic Plan)
Launching Eco-Cultural Tourism by launching the Dance Studio Training Center, training on sewing ulos derivative products, providing assistance with sewing tools, derivative product exhibitions, branding and packaging training for village products.

INALUM always strives to build strong relationships with the community. With social and environmental programs, INALum contributes to community welfare and improves the quality of life together.