IO, Yogyakarta – The Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy/ Tourism and Creative Economy Agency (Kemenparekraf/Baparekraf) emphasizes the importance of inter-community synergy in disseminating accurate and accurate information including the development of the tourism sector and the creative economy amid the pandemic.
Head of the Communication Bureau of the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy/Baparekraf Agustini Rahayu during the 2020 Genpi National Coordination Meeting with the theme ‘Community Synergy to Support Advanced Indonesia’ which took place in a hybrid manner at The Alana Hotel, Yogyakarta, Saturday (5/12/2020), explained that community synergy is considered very important because the community is an important part of the stakeholder pentahelix element to achieve increased and accelerated development in the tourism and creative economy sector.
“Synergy is very important. How can we disseminate information to the public so that it is easily captured – and this is also a challenge in itself – how can we create a narrative that can be understood by everyone with our diversity? Also, how to synergize the message so that it can run well?” he asked, rhetorically.
During the 2020 Genpi National Coordination Meeting, National Genpi Advisor Heru Mataya, General Chairperson of National Genpi Siti Chodijah, Head of the DIY Tourism Office Raharjo, Head of the Youth Sport and Tourism Service (Kadisporapar) of Central Java Province Sinoeng Nugroho were all present, as well as Genpi members from 34 provinces who attended the event, both offline and online.
Ayu, Agustini Rahayu’s nickname, also explained that in the last few months the whole world has been faced with a pandemic. All are required to change in line with the rapidly accelerating development of information technology. For this reason, it is necessary to create innovation in communication patterns in facing the new era which plays an important role in the tourism and creative economy sector.
“Before the pandemic, the tourism sector was the second-largest contributor to foreign exchange for Indonesia. However, during the pandemic, tourism was the sector that was hardest hit. For this reason, the role of the community is very important to be able to help inform the programs and policies of the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy in the recovery of the tourism and creative economy sector, which in turn creates public and tourist trust,” she said.
Ayu also explained how Kemenparekraf maximized the function of the crisis center to provide information to all tourism and creative economy stakeholders. This includes forming a task force as a communication bridge for the media, to disseminate information about programs or policies run by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy/ Baparekraf.
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, by presenting a chatbot that can provide information services and public complaints for 24 hours, is integrated with other systems in the Communication Bureau as one of the steps to fulfill this function.
“This is expected to make it easier for the public to request information. Also to make it easier to convey information to the public. Our enthusiasm is to provide information more quickly and accurately about what is happening in the tourism and creative economy sector during the pandemic,” said Ayu.
Currently, the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, through the Communication Bureau, has an application called “Community Hub” which was launched in August 2020. Community Hub is an application that is a communication platform for all communities in Indonesia, apart from sharing work and activities.
“There are hundreds of communities recorded throughout Indonesia, however, only 20 have joined the Community Hub. Indonesia is the largest archipelagic country in the world; it took years to get to know and visit all the destinations in Indonesia. For this reason, synergy with the community that is most familiar with the region, which is spread all over, is very important to be able to help report and convey accurate and fast information to the public from their respective destinations, as well as to help disseminate information on programs and policies in the tourism and creative economy sector,” he said.
On the same occasion, the Head of the DIY Tourism Office, Singgih Raharjo, said that the implementation of health protocols is important to foster the confidence of tourists who will come on vacation and the tourism industry in Yogyakarta.
“The tourism climate in DIY has begun to grow again; this is evidenced by the fact that we were flooded with tourists several times last weekend. That is the result we have done for the recovery of destinations in Yogyakarta. We involve Genpi Jogja to produce content about health protocols so that tourists going to Yogyakarta are well informed,” He Said