This dissertation is an ethnographic study of tourism development in Indonesia under conditions of limited and disrupted tourist arrivals. Drawing on fieldwork conducted primarily on Lombok in the aftermath of the 2018 earthquakes and the COVID-19 pandemic, it examines how civil servants, entrepreneurs, politicians, students, and brokers engaged Indonesia’s expanding tourism programs during President Joko Widodo’s two terms in office (2014–2024). In secondary destinations like Lombok, long overshadowed by neighboring Bali, the collapse of visitor flows revealed a dynamic that had long characterized Indonesian tourism more broadly: tourism could persist, and even expand, through public spending and bureaucratic activity carried out in its name, in the relative absence of tourists. In decentralized Indonesia, this is possible because tourism operates through state-mediated programs that circulate budgets, recognition, and opportunity, enabling local governments and other actors to pursue resources, visibility, and political relevance. Moving across village, district, provincial, and national scales, the dissertation traces how the “tourist” has become a future-oriented justification for coordination and public spending. It argues that tourism in Indonesia is not simply an industry but a mode of governance through which state institutions and the people who enact them organize political participation, allocate resources, and confer recognition. The dissertation contributes to political and economic anthropology by showing how developmental governance can operate through the anticipation and performance of markets rather than through their realization.