CULTURAL DIPLOMACY THROUGH TOURISM PROMOTION: INDONESIA’S CULTURAL DIPLOMACY TO GERMANY (2015 – 2018)

Abstract

Tourism is an important sector in growing national economy. For Indonesia, it stands as one of the top five contributors of foreign exchange. Therefore, Indonesia works on developing its tourism. Many things have been done, especially in Joko Widodo, seventh President of Indonesia, during 2015 until 2018, such as building infrastructures and facilities to support tourist destination and also conducting tourism promotion abroad. All agendas of tourism development are done to pursue president’s vision and Nawacita number six. This writing is focusing on one area of tourism development which is tourism promotion. Tourism promotion is an interesting issue because when conducting it, Indonesia is also conducting cultural diplomacy to pursue national interest and mutual understanding. Moreover, this writing takes one specific country which is Germany. Germany has good relations with Indonesia. In addition, the number of German tourist arrivals to Indonesia is the biggest three among European countries. Furthermore, there are big international exhibitions in German such as ITB Berlin. Those platforms can be a useful platform for Indonesia in executing tourism promotion along with attracting German tourist as well as conducting Indonesia’s cultural diplomacy. Finally, this study uses qualitative methodology to analyse official documents from Ministry of Tourism such as Ministry of Tourism Performance Accountability Report and reports of tourism promotion program implementation to prove that Indonesia’s cultural diplomacy can be done through tourism promotion in Germany.