INCREASING LOCAL FRUITS COMPETITIVENESS IN ENTERING THE TOURISM MARKET IN BALI

ABSTRACT The study focused on improving the fruit quality supported by handling of the cultivation, harvest and postharve st handling such as fruit packing, transportation, storage, and others, as well as marketing strategies and regulations that are ne eded locally, so local Bali fruits can compete better in the Bali tourism market. The purposes of this study were to find some problems face by the localfruits to enterthe tourism marke t in Bali. The local fruits studied were citrus, salacca, mangoes, mangosteen, banana, and papaya. This study was through multiple surveys such as, inte rviews with farme rs, whole salers, fruit suppliers, and the manage rs of the hote ls and restaurants. The results of this study found some local fruits have ente red the tourism market in Bali, in addition, local people in Bali te nd to consume the imported fruits for some cultural ceremony, events and others.The results of this study showthat the main problems in the local fruits such as citrus and banana were harvesting, packaging, storage, and transportation. The laboratory studies found that some microbes and inse cts infe cted local fruits due to the lackof handling such as packaging, storage, and transportation. The findings of this study was local fruits such as orange s and bananas face many obstacles ranging from harvest, post-harvest management, transportation, and the marketing strategies. Many problem has found on bananas such as damaged on storage, as well as citrus fruits. Improvements to the appearance of the fruit has been tried to do by the application of emulsion of he rbal oils, oleic acid, wax, tween, and the results showed the fruits still in a fre sh condition afte r four weeks of treatme nt while the untre ated fruits were rotten due tothe infe ction of microbes. The blackspots of insects ormicrobes infections on the treated fruits can be eliminated as well. Some inse cts and microbial attacks were found that leads to fruit rot which can essentially be removed by tre atment with antimicrobial tre atment. This research tries to chart the effects on the competitiveness of localfruits, such as continuity of production, standardization and regulation which could be developed at the local level in the village community. Keywords: Local fruits, competitiveness, emulsion, regulation