THE IMPLEMENTATION OF INDONESIA’S GASTRODIPLOMACY CONDUCTED BY THE MINISTRY OF TOURISM THROUGH TOURISM PROMOTION IN JAPAN (2015-2018)

Abstract

Gastrodiplomacy is one of the government’s strategies which uses food as a tool to increase the awareness of foreign public towards the country’s culinary culture, because the culinary wealth of a nation is a special attraction in the eyes of the international. This strategy has been done by the Ministry of Tourism of the Republic of Indonesia as an actor through tourism promotion to Japan. Gastrodiplomacy offers an experience to the foreign public to be able to interact with other cultures in an informal way through taste. The purpose of this research is to analyze the efforts of the Ministry of Tourism of Republic of Indonesia in implementing Indonesia’s gastrodiplomacy through tourism promotion to Japan. Thus, this research using several related concepts, such as soft power, public diplomacy and gastrodipomacy itself to make the analysis more comprehensive. This research using a qualitative research method as a method to explain the existing problems. The data collection techniques are obtained from the official reports of the Ministry of Tourism of the Republic of Indonesia as primary source and secondary sources are obtained from journals, books and websites. This research ultimately shows that Indonesia as a developing country uses soft power to get its national interests through gastrodiplomacy as a form of implementation of public diplomacy which has been carried out by the Ministry of Tourism of Republic of Indonesia in promoting Indonesian food and drinks indirectly in Japan.