
Tourism, including in Indonesia, is one of the sectors that can greatly contribute to the country’s foreign exchange earnings and employment. However, there is no technical norms available in the legislations on the absorption of local workers originating from indigenous people of the area which resulted in very little absorption of these type of local workers compared to workers originating from other regions. Thus, this article aims to analyze the legal basison the utilization of local residents as workers in the tourism service field in Indonesia and to analyze standard benchmarkof such utilization. This study uses normative legal research with statute, conceptual and historical approaches. The results show thatthe current legal basis on the utilization of local local residents asworkers in the field of tourism service in Indonesialay in the 1945 Indonesian Constitution, Indonesian Human Rights Law, Indonesian Investment Law, Indonesian Manpower Law and Indonesian Tourism Law. As for standard benchmarks of such utilization in Indonesia are the existence of competence in accordance with Government Regulation Number 52 of 2012 on Competency Certification and Business Certification in the Field of Tourism and human resources development related to the development of attitudes, behavior, manners and so on. Meanwhile the percentage of the utilization of local local residents as workers needs to be further examined in terms of its fairness and appropriateness.