JAKARTA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia's largest lake, Toba, in North Sumatra province is scheduled to host an international kayaking event, the 2017 International Toba Kayak Marathon from July 28 to 30 this year. Around 200 international and domestic kayakers are expected to take part.
The event, themed "Kayaking on the Top of a Super Volcano," will be the first international kayaking activity held in the equatorial country of Indonesia, and is planned to be held annually.
"Kayaking can become an international water tourism icon at Lake Toba. With its serenity and beautiful natural panorama, Lake Toba is fit to host kayaking events in the future," organizer of the event Charles Simson Panjitan, who heads the Sumatra paddler community, said in a statement released on Monday.
He added that by organizing regular kayaking activities in Lake Toba each year, it can benefit the local tourism industry in the future.
Darwin Siagian, an official at Lake Toba, pledged his administration's full support in order to kayaking an annual sports event in the area.
"This is interesting, given the fact that there is no other place in Indonesia that has such an event," he said in a statement.
A Darwin official overseeing tourism and cultural affairs in the regency, Ultri Simangunsong, said that the upcoming kayaking event has been added to the North Sumatra provincial 2017 calendar of events.
The planned event has also been endorsed by Indonesia's Tourism Minister Arief Yahya.
The Jurassic Lake Toba was created from a volcanic explosion that occurred around 75,000 years ago in Sumatra. The explosion left behind a lake with an island at its center. The lake, with a length and width of 100 by 30 kilometers is the largest one both in Indonesia and in Southeast Asia.
Lake Toba is part of Indonesia's 10 new tourism destinations developed by government in a bid to attract more foreign visitors to the archipelago nation.
Indonesia has declared its tourism sector as the nation's core business, expected to bring in 24 billion U.S. Dollars by 2019 from some 20 million foreign visitors to be targeted by that time.
