There will be a new country near Indonesia that has beautiful panoramas, but people have to be careful when traveling there. The candidate for the new country is Bougainville, who voted for independence from Papua New Guinea in the 2019 referendum. The process for Bougainville's disengagement will begin in 2023, and is expected to be fully independent in 2027. The result of the referendum has made local residents and international observers optimistic about Bougainville's bright future, as the island is enriched with abundant natural resources and tourism potential. Untouched forests, rivers, volcanoes and 685 km of coastline still original. In fact, Bougainville is said to be an alternative to natural scenery tourism besides Bali and Fiji, but tourists are advised to make very careful planning if they want to go there.
"Tour operators are limited to Bougainville, mostly World War II veterans and their relatives," said Dr Thiago Cintra-Oppermann, a Bougainville expert from the Australian National University.
"Bougainville is a very beautiful place, with great and diverse views, and friendly people, but the infrastructure is still very limited compared to Fiji and Bali," he continued.
One of the main tourist attractions is World War II ruins and historical tours. More than 60,000 Americans were based in Bougainville during World War II, and Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto died in a plane crash in the forest there. In addition, Bougainville has also recently been hit by the Delta variant of the Covid-19 outbreak, so it was locked down after 10 deaths in early November and 170 new cases.
"Ecotourism is an area of possible growth, but over the last two years it has stalled," continued Dr Cintra-Oppermann.
As a developing country, Bougainville has a lot to do in developing health services and tourism infrastructure. Apart from Covid-19, endemic malaria is also a sustainable issue. There are many other factors that also make its mother country, Papua New Guinea, less popular in terms of tourism, especially a dangerous reputation for personal safety. Much of this is due to crime and violence between local residents (especially domestic violence and violence against women) as well as corruption. Transparency International's 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index ranks Papua New Guinea 142 out of 180 countries. Transparency International's 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index ranks Papua New Guinea at 142 out of 180 countries.
"For a very long time the only viable tourism industry was small-scale adventure tourism and for people with money, because the costs to get there and do activities around Bougainville were very high," said Dr Anthony Regan, a Papua New Guinea expert at Australian National University.
"There's hardly any tourist-grade accommodation of any kind, outside of small, not-so-maintained guesthouses."
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