Indonesia president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo wants villages in Indonesia to look like the Gamcheon tourist village in the South Korean port city of Busan.
Once a 1950s slum when refugees flocked to it in the aftermath of the Korean War, the art-themed village is now a major visitor attraction.
Prior to attending the ASEAN-South Korea Commemorative Summit on Monday, Jokowi and and his wife Iriana visited the hillside village, which is dubbed the “Machu Picchu of Busan”.
The couple tasted local food at a cafe in Gamcheon while looking at the village’s multi-tiered communal layout, the Jakarta Post reported.
The village now features colourful houses built in staircase-fashion and alleys decorated with murals and sculptures, as well as exhibition spaces and restaurants.
“I suppose that villages in [Indonesia] can also transform themselves and build something like [Gamcheon],” Jokowi said as quoted in a statement released by the Presidential Press Bureau.
“We can take [Gamcheon] as a model and create some modifications, but the most important thing is there is an urban rehabilitation [programme] with community development and creative economy empowerment,” he said.