Marketing Communication Strategies of Bali Island as a Turning Point for Promoting Yogyakarta as a Cultural Tourism Destination of Indonesia

In Indonesia, tourism has been one of the important industries. Cultural tourism is considered as an integral part of the Indonesian tourism industry. In Bali, where most of Indonesian Hindus live, cultural and religious festivals with Balinese dance-drama performances in Balinese temples, are major attractions for foreign tourists. Beside Bali Island, cultural tourism also plays an important part in Yogyakarta, a special region in Indonesia known as the center of classical Javanese art and culture. The rise and fall of Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic kingdoms in Central Java have transformed Yogyakarta into a melting pot of Indonesian culture.

This research aims to explain the problem of tourism in Yogyakarta city, in which it made a less development compared to tourism in Bali Island. Although both destinations provide similar characteristics of tourism, but the number of tourists who visited Yogyakarta is much lower compared to those who travelled to Bali Island. Both Bali Island and Yogyakarta rely on the excellence of culture and natural attraction to draw tourists, but Bali Island made succeed to attract high number of tourists, while Yogyakarta didn’t.

A SWOT analysis was conducted in order to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of tourism in Bali Island and in Yogyakarta. In other words, SWOT analysis was applied because it provides an easy way to understand the situation of both tourism destinations. Moreover, this research focuses on two questions: (1) why foreign tourists prefer Bali Island more than Yogyakarta; and (2) how to improve the performance of tourism in Yogyakarta.

The research shows that there are three reasons why foreign tourists prefer Bali Island more than Yogyakarta: (1) the management of Bali Island is appropriate to the international standard of tourism destination; (2) the uniqueness of Balinese culture; and (3) sustainable improvement of tourist attractions, which is guarantee in tourist’s satisfaction. To achieve the similar success to Bali Island, Yogyakarta should prepare some improvements on tourism development. There are several marketing communication strategies which can be done to attract more foreign tourists to this city: (1) strengthening the positioning of Yogyakarta city as a cultural tourism destination; (2) product development; (3) unique package of cultural tourism; (4) marketing mix; (5) social media marketing; (6) collaboration with stakeholders of industry; and (7) collaboration with press.

Generally, this research tries to reveal the key factors to develop tourism of Yogyakarta, and the role of communication study in the development. Complete result of this research wishes to provide a contribution to the practice of marketing communication, especially in the tourism development.