The Law Number 13 issued in 2012 (known as the Yogyakarta Idiosyncrasy Law) stated that Yogyakarta has special authorities that differ from other provinces in Indonesia. To maintain those specialties, according to the law, the Government of the Republic of Indonesia has to allocate special budget (known as the Idiosyncrasy Fund) as a part of the national budget. Initially assigned for developing the cultural sector as the uniqueness of Yogyakarta, other sectors having appropriate relation to cultural development could access the fund as well, including the tourism sector.
This study aims to evaluate the impact of the fund on the tourism sector in Yogyakarta which is proxied by the hotel occupancy rate. For evaluating the impact, the difference in differences (DID) approach was utilized in this study along with the panel data of 22 provinces in Indonesia.
The findings suggested that the Idiosyncrasy Fund impacts the tourism sector in Yogyakarta positively significantly. Indeed, this study is not without limitations, and further studies are necessary to reveal more specific and accurate results.