Three ITB Students Took the First Place in NMBC 2015

Oleh Mega Liani Putri

Editor -

BANDUNG, itb.ac.id - Again, ITB students took the first place in national competition on tourism and culture essay. There were Faizal Abdillah (Management 2013), Nia Ayu Anggraeni (Management 2013), and Nur Lawiyah (Entrepreneurship 2013) in the team who won the National Management Brainstorming Competition (NMBC) 2015 held by Bakrie University on Wednesday-Thursday (26-27/03/15). NMBC was one of Management Brainstorming (MANGSTORM) 2015 series which is the annual event held by the student organization of Management in Bakrie with theme of 'Youth Perspective to Enhance Indonesia's Tourist'.

The three students thought that the value of the competition is really urgent. Besides introducing Indonesia's culture, they also could improve the interest of foreigners to come to Indonesia. In the competition the teams goto choose one site to discuss about. ITB team, whose name was Komunitas Iket Jawa (KI Jawa) chose Ketawangrejo village as the tourism object because it has a potential to develop. The village itself had been the community's partner for a while now.

KI Jawa and the Beautiful Ketawang Village

KI Jawa is the community that works on conserving Javanese culture by producing traditional headpiece, called iket. The community has a mean to maintain good relationship with the residents and so the tourists that will come to visit. KI Jawa have their members all over Java including East Java and Yogyakarta. The tree students are the members who also have the dream to develop the natural potential of Indonesia, especially Java.

Up until now, KI Jawa have lots of partners, including Ketawangrejo village. The village is located in East Java whose natural beauty are all over the place and added by the arts. However, Kelawangrejo is not really famous forin tourism. In fact, it has a beautiful beach and other natural spots, traditional dance and music which are able to attract people's attention.

The Strategy to Develop the Tourism by KI Jawa

In the essay, the students wrote their ideas to develop the tourism not only in Ketawangrejo Village but also the other area. The students have three main ideas to attract foreigners to visit Indonesia, which are Community-Based Tourism (CBT), Traffic Light Marketing (TLM), and Emotional Engagement (EE). They are all connected to each other. "These three ideas will make it easier to engage foreigners to come to Indonesia," Faizal said.

CBT is the technique of community marketing to maintain the good networking which has been done by KI Jawa. In CBT, all the members shall understand that community is the collaboration of the locals and foreigners. There are some main terms in the membership: joining the program in all aspects, improving the community's quality of life, maintaining the unique character and local wisdoms, and respecting the cultural diversity and human prestige. The community believes that it is not only networking, but it will also improve the potential of the partners.

While TLM is quite unique, it allows people to do something by not allowing others to do it. "Like the traffic light, when the red is on, on the other side the green is. TLM is just like that, the idea to make people interested to do the prohibitions," Nia explained.

The last strategy is EE; to build emotional relationship between the tourists and locals. The first step is to let the people live in the local's houses and they will get the special names from the hosts. The tourist will feel special and respected by the locals. They will be also considered as the member of the family. "KI Jawa wants the emotional relationship to be something that will bound the tourist to the villages so they will be longing for coming back and letting their networks to know about the villages they visited," Faizal said.


Documentation by Faizal Abdillah (Management 2013) dan  http://caket.org/pantai-ketawang-indah/


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