ER
IN ORDER to slowly restore the condition of Indonesia’s tourism and travel campaigns in Indonesia, Wahyu Promo Citra Exhibition held the Gebyar Wisata Nusantara (GWN) Expo from Friday to Sunday, 1-3 July 2022, at the Jakarta Convention Center.
According to Sri Hastuti, Project Manager of Gebyar Wisata Nusantara (GWN) Expo 2022 said, for 2 years this annual event was vacuum due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, the GWN Expo is back with the same dignity, namely developing and generating tourism and the national creative economy.
GWN Expo 2022, which is entering its 18th year of implementation, in terms of participants and the size of the exhibition, it must be admitted that it is still far from before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The number of declines reached 60%. Several regional tourism offices that regularly participate in this year’s GWN have not been able to attend, because the promotional budget is used for COVID-19 recovery.
“This year, only 15 regional tourism offices participated. Whereas in the past, before the pandemic, almost all provincial/city/district tourism offices were always present with 150 booths. The decrease reached 60%,” she said.
Meanwhile, Taufik Nurhidayat, Marketing Director of Area 1, Sumatra, Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, emphasized that along with travel easing, and vaccinations, which made up more than 75% of the Meeting Incentive Convention Exhibition (MICE) industry, especially Exhibition, has started to get excited.
“One indication that the MICE industry is starting to improve is the holding of the 2022 GWN Expo at the JCC. Little by little the tourism sector began to move better and rise. Although the number of participants and outside the arena is still minimal, if it used to be 3 things for several exhibitions, now it’s 1 thing for several exhibitions. However, this is a good indicator that the MICE industry has started running and is confident,” he explained.
Table Top
Another positive indicator, the organizers still maintain the table top concept in the exhibition. In this table top, the organizers bring together sellers from GWN Expo 2020 participants to meet and do business with buyers from the city of Jakarta.
“Both sellers and buyers during the COVID-19 pandemic have fallen. For this reason, we took the initiative to bring them back together to do business with each other at this year’s GWN exhibition. there are about 20 sellers and 40 buyers who do business with each other during the exhibition,” added Sri Hastuti.
Likewise, Taufik Nurhidayat remarked that several tourism offices, the hotel industry, restaurants and destination players who are sellers as well as GWN participants look ready to welcome buyers.
“Several regional tourism offices who were present were able to follow the table top by offering the best destinations and prices to the buyers who were present. Please do business to restore and revive national tourism,” he concluded. [traveltext.id]
