FACEBOOK:
A
NEW STRATEGIC WAY TO PROMOTE TOURISM IN INDONESIA
Facebook is a
popular social networking site that has over 175 million active users throughout
the world. It has many utilities such as, wall, info, photos, boxes,
events, discussions, groups, and so forth. By using those, users
can do several things, for instance: add friends, send messages, or update
their personal status. Users also can join groups organized by workplace,
school, or college. Furthermore, besides using Facebook to those kinds of
activities, have you ever done another thing that gives you more advantages?
Considering both facilities and user number of Facebook, we can do a lot of
advantageous things, including promoting tourism, particularly tourism in
Indonesia. Hence, using Facebook to promote tourism in Indonesia is an
effective and efficient way rather than using other mass media due to some
reasons such as, user number, components, and features in Facebook.
Before we
examine the potential of Facebook to promote tourism more, it is better if we
know the fact about tourism nowadays. Tourism, as we know, has essential role
to the world economic development. It is an important pillar in almost every
country’s economy. Based on the data from United Nations Conference on Trade
and Development (UNCTAD), tourism generates 11 percent of Global Gross Domestic
Product (GDP); it employs 200 million people and transports nearly 700 million
international travelers per year. It is predicted that those numbers will double
by 2020. Furthermore, tourism also represents a great potential for poverty
reduction. Consequently, many efforts to promote the tourism have been done in
order to raise the number of tourist up, especially through cyber social networking,
Facebook.
Facebook, of
course has an important role in promoting the tourism in Indonesia since there
are over 175 million people throughout the world have Facebook account. By
having Facebook account, people are able to find out either old or new friends,
to keep in touch with friends, and to share experiences about everything, even
about interesting tourist destinations Facebook,
in fact is internationally used in Asia, Europe, America, Africa, and other
places in this globe. As the result, it is quite possible that our account is
visited by more than 175 million people around the world. Then, as the
international promotional media, of course Facebook is quite cheap due to very
low promotional costs rather than brochures or other mass media, television, radio,
even Miss Universe. Those kind of media, of course much more expensive than
Facebook. Moreover, according to Lukman Luthfie, CEA Virtual Consulting, it is
known that approximately 65 percent of the Internet users use the Internet in
order to get tourist information and 18 percent of them are interested in the
tourism promotion that offered on it (www.indonesia.travel.com). Hence, we
should be able to use this situation as one of the ways to increase the number
of tourists who visit Indonesia.
Besides the
large number of users, Facebook also facilitates us with a number of components,
like wall, info, photos, event, chat, etc. Indeed, all those components will
help us to promote tourism in Indonesia. All those “Wall” in which we are able
to post messages or interesting stories about everything will make one tourism
objects more interesting and attractive than others. Often, by reading the
status on the wall, the visitors will give some feedback in form of comments or
questions. “Info” is another component
which can be used to include detailed information about tourism objects,
route, restaurant, hotel, and many other accommodations which are offered. “Photos”,
another special component, is provided to create photo albums. We may attach a
large number of photos such as, tourism objects or tourism activities,
restaurants, hotels, or other accommodation facilities. The interesting photos
are expected to attract the visitors to come. “Event” can inform all events, festival,
exhibition, shows, and detailed information about all events that will be held.
Additionally, “Chat” holds an important part to increase the number of tourists
as it facilitates users to communicate, to share experiences and to give
recommendations one another about the best destination. It is strengthened by a
research that said 54% of the Internet users use their friends’ recommendation to
decide which tourism object that will be visited (www.bisnisindonesia.com).
Of course, all those components above cannot be provided by one side media,
such as newspaper, magazine, television, radio, and others in which the reader
or viewer cannot give feedback directly. However, Facebook facilitates us to
give comment, feedback, or suggestion in less than a minute. Again, we can
conclude that Facebook is very potential to promote tourism objects and to attract
people to visit certain places.
Other
reason why Facebook is quite potential in promoting our tourism is its features
on pages and groups. Pages are visible to both registered and unregistered
people. It is also known by some search
engines like, Google, Yahoo, MSN, Opera, etc. When an internet user types the
keyword that related to our pages, search engines will show our pages on the
users’ desktop. It will be very advantageous because it can be a part of
promoting tourism objects. Groups, on the other hand, are more private than
pages and are available to members only. By using groups, we can send out invitation
to any group member. The users are able to post videos
and pictures which of course will attract people. Thus, we can use both pages and groups to promote
either tourism products or tourism services as well.
Nevertheless,
my opponents who have another point of view of Facebook might argue that Facebook is
quite risky
due to the fake information which we can find out in Facebook easily. Often,
the owner of Facebook account write in hyperbolic words in order to attract the
visitors to come and to increase the number of tourists only. Moreover, any members
of groups or pages are possibly to write mockery things which are quite ashamed.
Furthermore, promotional media like TV, radio, newspaper or magazine are more
effective, efficient, and trustworthy than Facebook. There is an editor or the
censorship institution which select the contents in order to reduce the number
of waste and fake information. However, it should not be the reason to avoid
using Facebook as the media to promote tourism in Indonesia. We have to
remember that all countries are doing competition by using a lot of ways to
attract the most visitors, such as Thailand, Malaysia,
Mexico, and others. It is quite ironic if we still stand up in the decision not
to use such kind of facilities. Of course, we will be left behind by other
countries or even be less popular among others. Fortunately, some regions in
Indonesia have been trying to use social networking site in promoting their
tourism objects. For instance, Manado, North Sumatra, and South Sumatera, have
made survival efforts to prove their existence. By using Facebook, they can
show the world that there are lots of interesting and beautiful tourism objects
that are still hidden in those regions, such as national submarine park Wakatobi,
Toba Lake, Musi festival, and etc.
In conclusion, Facebook,
a successful social networking service, gives a lot of benefits. It is very strategic, effective
and efficient in promoting tourism in Indonesia. Of course, it has both
positive and negative sides. However, the later side is only the other side of
the coin. It should not be the reason to judge that it is absolutely bad. One
more thing, if we want to get the most benefits of Facebook, we need to balance
and handle the use of it as wisely possible.
IKA FITRIANI
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