A deficit in the International Balance of Payments (BOP) will lead to volatile food and commodity prices, low savings ratios and the financial sector will hinder development, limited public budgets with low economic conditions will hamper the process of economic growth. The phenomenon of the balance of payments deficit is experienced by almost all ASEAN countries, including Indonesia. Strengthening the BOP should pay attention at the components or items inside. One of the items in the BOP is the current account balance, which records the service account. The services account records the flow of exports and imports  in every country. As the components in the current account balance, one of the potential policy steps is strengthen tourism competitivenes to increase foreign exchange reserves. The tourism industry has been shown significantly reduce the problem of a deficit current account balance of payment (BOP) (Alp & Genc, 2015). One indicator of the success of tourism performance is the increase in the number of foreign and domestic tourist visit (Astuti, 2021).  

To strengthen tourism it’s important to understand the tourism competitiveness of a country, many indicators and index have been developed by different organizations over the years to measure certain aspects of competitiveness. This study aims to determine the determining variables that strengthen the tourism sector directly, and see whether these variables indirectly affect the strengthening of the current account balance. This study will provide an overview and see the factors that affect the competitiveness of tourism.