E-Journal of Tourism Vol.8. No.1. (2021): 1-13 1http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot e-ISSN 2407-392X. p-ISSN 2541-0857 Social Media Marketing Strategy of Indonesian Tourism in The Time of Pandemic Aulia Chloridiany* Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, Indonesia *Corresponding Author: aulia@indonesia.travel DOI: https://doi.org/10.24922/eot.v8i1.71445 Abstract Tourism is among one of the hardest hit sectors caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. According to UNWTO (2020), 100-120 million direct tour- ism jobs were at risk and international tourist numbers in January – May 2020 decreased 56% year on year. Indonesia’s tourism sector is not an exception. The number of foreign tourist visits to Indonesia fell down -89.22 % year on year, which definitely affects the whole condition of Indonesian tourism. Therefore, the Indonesian government have done several efforts to manage the situation since the pandemic started. Due to limitation of offline activities, digital marketing, including social media, had become the main strategy to maintain Indonesian tourism’s presence in the market. This paper will discuss the social media mar- keting strategy has been done by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy (MOTCE) Indonesia to promote Indonesian tourism during pandemic time, especially for the global market. Using social media marketing strategy (SMMS) framework from Li, Larimo and Leonidou (2020), this research found that the social marketing media strategy has been implemented by MOTCE could be categorized as the social con- tent strategy, as the Indonesia Travel accounts focus on suitable contents with the audiences who struggle with the pandemic. Indonesia Travel as the official social media marketing accounts, has been active to post contents even since the beginning of the pandemic through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Weibo, and Wechat. From January to Sep- tember 2020, Indonesia Travel posted more than 683 contents. How- ever, the pandemic has driven the Indonesia Travel accounts to slightly changed the marketing objectives, adapting with what audiences want- ed. Not only posting about the beauty of tourism destinations in Indone- sia, since February they also post about Covid-19 related information. Keywords: tourism, marketing strategy, digital marketing, social me- dia, pandemic Article Info Submitted February 15th 2021 Accepted March 18th 2021 Published March 31th 2021 all over the world until more than 44.7 million cases were founded as of October 2020 (Johns Hopkins University, 2020). On March 11th, 2020, Director General of World Health Organization officially an- INTRODUCTION The COVID-19 disease was first emerged in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Since then, the disease has spread E-Journal of Tourism Vol.8. No.1. (2021): 1-13 2http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot e-ISSN 2407-392X. p-ISSN 2541-0857 become the main strategy to maintain Indo- nesian tourism’s presence in the market. As in the MOTCE official press release, Depu- ty Minister of Tourism Marketing, Nia Nis- caya, stated that the online promotion and campaign should be optimized in order to build awareness in global markets (Kemen- parekraf, 2020a). Considering the above situation, this paper asks a main question: “What is the social media marketing strategy of Indone- sian tourism during COVID 19 pandemic situation in 2020, especially for the global market?”. Specifically, this paper digs the social marketing strategy has been done by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy (MOTCE) of the Republic of In- donesia, which is in charge for the national tourism policy in Indonesia. Research peri- od is from January to September 2020. LITERATURE REVIEW According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), “Social Media is a group of In- ternet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content”. Mo- reover, social media can be classified into: 1) collaborative projects (i.e., Wikipedia); 2) virtual communities (i.e., Twitter, Tri- pAdvisor, travel blogs); 3) content com- munities (i.e., Youtube, Flickr, Pinterest, Instagram); 4) social network sites (i.e., Facebook, Linkedin); and 5) virtual games/ social worlds e.g., online games of Micro- soft X-box or Sony Playstation and websi- tes like Second Life) (Minazzi, 2015). Meanwhile, social media for marke- ting purpose are defined as platforms on which people build networks and share in- formation and/or sentiments (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Social media have been admitted to change the marketplace dras- tically, therefore Li, Larimo and Leonidou (2020) conclude that social media marke- nounced the Covid-19 can be characterized as pandemic. Soon after the announcement, many countries have enforced travel rest- rictions. As a consequence of the travel rest- rictions, tourism sectors suffered and beca- me one of the hardest hit sectors caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. UNWTO (2020) predicts 100-120 million direct tourism jobs were at risk and USD 910 billion to 1.2 trillion in exports for tourism – interna- tional visitors’ spending was lost. In fact, during January to May 2020, international tourist arrivals were decreased 56% year on year, means loss of USD 320 billion in ex- ports from tourism in five months. President of the Republic of Indone- sia, Joko Widodo, announced the first Co- vid19 cases on March 2nd, 2020. A month later, the President decided to close the bor- ders for visitors from all countries in order to curb the Covid19 imported cases (Jakarta Post, 2020). The decision was implemented in Regulation of Minister of Law and Hu- man Rights of The Republic of Indonesia Number 11 Year 2020 Concerning Tempo- rary Prohibition for Foreigner to Enter The Territory Of The Republic Of Indonesia, signed on April 2nd, 2020. In result, foreign visitors to Indone- sia as of August 2020 were only 164.970 visits, declined drastically into -89.22% year on year (MOTCE and Central Statis- tics Bureau, 2020). The decrease definitely affects the whole condition of Indonesian tourism. The Minister of Tourism and Cre- ative Economy of the Republic of Indone- sia (MOTCE), Wishnutama Kusubandio, stated that 13 million workers of tourism sectors as well as 32.5 million workers of indirectly-related-to-tourism were affected by pandemic (Detik, 2020). Therefore, the Indonesian govern- ment have done several efforts to manage the situation since the pandemic started. Due to limitation of offline activities, digi- tal marketing, including social media, had E-Journal of Tourism Vol.8. No.1. (2021): 1-13 3http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot e-ISSN 2407-392X. p-ISSN 2541-0857 ting strategy (SMMS) as “an organization’s integrated pattern of activities that, based on a careful assessment of customers’ mo- tivations for brand-related social media use and the undertaking of deliberate engage- ment initiatives, transform social media connectedness (networks) and interactions (influences) into valuable strategic means to achieve desirable marketing outcomes.” Figure 1. A conceptualization of the pro- cess of developing social media marketing strategies Figure 2. Theoretical anchoring of compo- nents constituting the process of develop- ing social media marketing strategies In addition, Li, et al. (2020) suggests three important criteria to differentiate SMMSs, i.e: 1) the nature of the firm’s stra- tegic social media objectives with regard to using social media; 2) the direction of inte- ractions taking place between the firm and the customers; and 3) the level of customer engagement achieved. Besides, there were four categories of SMMS representing inc- reasing levels of strategic maturity: 1) so- cial commerce strategy; 2) social content strategy; 3) social monitoring strategy; and 4 social CRM strategy. In the context of tourism, significan- ces of social media marketing in tourism are: 1) Directing visitors and customers to the right travel information; 2) Sending personalize messages and content directly to interested segment of customers (Jashi, 2013). Moreover, Kotler, Bowen and Ma- kens (2010) agrees that digital marketing, including social media, as the fastest-gro- wing form of direct marketing. As he states, “For travel products, it can be argued that social media entails a change from one-to- one recommendations from individuals to many-to-many conversations.” But perso- nalization is only one of some benefits of using social media, the others are: interac- tive; immediate and timely; cost effective; engagement and social sharing capabilities. On the other hand, the challenges are: re- sults are hard to measure; and user control- led (Kotler, et al., 2010). METHODS This paper uses a qualitative case stu- dy approach. For a qualitative research, this study sought to explore and understand the meaning by individuals or group of peop- le ascribed social or humanitarian issues (Creswell, 2013). The type of research is a case study. Qualitative research is a case study research strategy where researchers investigate carefully a program, event, ac- tivity, process, or group of individuals. The cases are limited by time, which is January to September 2020 period. Researchers col- lected detailed information using a variety of data collection procedures based on a predetermined time (Creswell, 2013). Data gathered in this research are from digital data, i.e. articles in websites, posts in social media, and social listening tools data. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Social Media under MOTCE The Indonesian government, in this case MOTCE, is officially in charge for some social media accounts. First, Kemen- E-Journal of Tourism Vol.8. No.1. (2021): 1-13 4http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot e-ISSN 2407-392X. p-ISSN 2541-0857 parekraf (abbreviation of Kementerian Pa- riwisata dan Ekonomi Kreatif - MOTCE) as the official corporate accounts of the Ministry to inform public about the tou- rism and creative economy policy. Second, Pesona Indonesia Travel social media ac- counts to promote Indonesian tourism to Indonesian citizens, so that the accounts use Indonesian language. Third, Indonesia Travel social media accounts to promote Indonesian tourism to global markets. The social media accounts under MOTCE are mostly using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube, which can be classified as the virtual communities, content communities, and social network sites (Minazzi, 2015). The platform choices were also suitab- le with the world’s most used social plat- forms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, WeChat, TikTok, and Twitter. While Kemenparekraf serves general public as the corporate accounts, Pesona In- donesia Travel and Indonesia Travel fulfil the functions as the social media marketing channels for Indonesian tourism. However, Pesona and Indonesia Travel slightly have different purposes in terms of targeted au- diences. Pesona Indonesia targeted Indo- nesian people to build networks and sha- re information and/or sentiments (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Li, et al., 2020), while Indonesia Travel targeted foreigners. The different target audiences bring different approaches, i.e Pesona Indonesia uses In- donesian language while Indonesia Travel uses English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Deutsch, and Arabic. Indonesia Travel as the Official Social Media Accounts for Promoting Indone- sian Tourism to the Global Market To answer the research question, this paper focuses on the social media marke- ting strategy run by Indonesia Travel ac- counts. As explained before, the Indonesia Travel social media accounts were inten- ded for global markets, in accordance with the Indonesian tourism’s target markets. Indonesia travel accounts in Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube use only English for global users. While the Facebook account uses language in accordance with the IP Address, i.e. English (for global account), Japanese, Korean, French, Dutch, Deutsch, Russian, and Arabic. To serve Chinese market, Wechat and Weibo’s social ac- counts were also made. In addition, this year MOTCE creates new Tiktok account, both for Global and Chinese Market. Performance of Indonesia Travel in 2019 Under President Joko Widodo who has governed since 2014, tourism has been the leading sector of Indonesian economy. The marketing strategy of Indonesian tou- rism basically aims to build Branding – Awareness – Selling of Indonesian tourism destinations. One of the marketing efforts is digital marketing, including social media. To attract and engage with more audiences, Indonesia Travel as the official social me- dia marketing accounts implemented com- bination between User Generated Contents and contents those conformed with govern- ment policy. According to 2019 MOTCE internal data, majority audience of @indtravel ac- counts comes from Generation Y, or com- monly known as “Millennials”. The global audiences loved the Indonesian tourism destinations, especially the natural ones, followed by cultural. Moreover, Bali is al- ways the number one destination to visit in Indonesia, and has proven to attract audi- ences in every country from each platform. Indonesia Travel Social Media Market- ing Strategy in January – August/Sep- tember 2020 This section shows the perspectives both from MOTCE or the Indonesian go- vernment through the social media contents as well as the customers which is reflected E-Journal of Tourism Vol.8. No.1. (2021): 1-13 5http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot e-ISSN 2407-392X. p-ISSN 2541-0857 Table 2. Official Social Media Accounts Under the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, Indonesia Name Content Focus Targeted Audience Unit in Charge Social Media Accounts Kemen- parekraf Informing the gov- ernment’s tourism and creative economy policy Indonesian and foreign nationals Bureau of Public Commu- nication, under the Secretary of MOTCE Facebook: @ParekrafRI Instagram: @kemenparekraf. ri Twitter: @Kemenparekraf Youtube: @Kemenparekraf Tiktok: @Kemenparekraf Pesona Indonesia Travel Promoting Indonesian tourism Indonesian citizens Consum- ers/ Tour- ists (G to C) Directorate of Marketing Communica- tion, under the Deputy Minis- ter of Tourism Marketing Facebook: @pesonaidtravel Instagram: @pesonaid_travel Twitter: @pesonaid_travel Youtube: @pesonaindone- siaofficial Indo- nesia Travel Promoting Indonesian tourism Foreign nationals Consum- ers/ Tour- ists (G to C) Directorate of Marketing Communica- tion, under the Deputy Minis- ter of Tourism Marketing Facebook: @Indonesia. Travel Instagram: @indtravel Twitter: @indtravel Youtube: @indonesiatravel Wechat: indtravel 印印印印 印印印 Weibo : 印印印印印 Tiktok: @Indonesia.travel and indonesia.travel 印印印 印印印印 through Sprinklr social listening tools data. The best post contents were taken from In- donesia Travel’s Twitter accounts which has the biggest number of followers among with other Indonesia Travel social media accounts (1.3 million followers). Meanw- hile, Sprinkl captures data related with In- donesia Tourism keywords. January 2020 When the first pandemic news in China reached Indonesia, the government as well as the people of Indonesia didn’t really aware that this disease would spread here. Thus, business run as usual. So does Indonesia.travel as the official social media accounts to promote Indonesian tourism for the global market. Looking back at In- donesia Travel’s contents on January 2020, posts’ details were as follows: 26 in Insta- gram, 4 in Youtube, 12 in Facebook, and 11 in Twitter. From those posts, all were about Indonesian tourism destinations and special events, e.g. Chinese New Year. On the other hand, from customers’ perspectives, there was no significant tur- moil. Sentiment Index on Indonesia Tou- rism topic captured by Sprinklr (January, 2020) shows that from 20 target markets, only Australia gets low score which is 27,12%. According to this data, the other markets’ scores were above 50% which E-Journal of Tourism Vol.8. No.1. (2021): 1-13 6http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot e-ISSN 2407-392X. p-ISSN 2541-0857 means good. February 2020 However, in February, the pande- mic tension started to feel in Indonesia. The Indonesian government issued Advisory on Covid19 and suspending direct flights from and to China on February 5th 2020. MOT- CE also issued Official Statement regar- ding Covid19, which published as the first article in special page of the Indonesian tourism promotion website, www.indone- sia.travel/coronavirus. The contents rela- ted to Covid19 appeared as the best post of Indonesia Travel’s twitter account in February 2020, which had 40,366 impres- sions and got good engagement rate, 5.8%. While Sentiment Index on Indonesia Tou- rism topic captured by Sprinklr (February, 2020) shows three countries got low score, which were Singapore (47.5%), South Af- rica (39.03%), and Thailand (47.89%). Table. 3. Description of Indonesia Travel Social Media Accounts Platforms Accounts Language Target Markets Facebook @Indonesia.Travel English Global Japanese Japan Korean South Korea French France Dutch The Netherland Deutsch Germany Russian Russia Arabic Saudi Arabia, United Emirates of Arab, Middle East countries Instagram @indtravel English Global Twitter @indtravel English Global YouTube @indonesiatravel English Global WeChat indtravel 印印印印 印印印 Chinese China Weibo 印印印印印 Chinese China Tiktok (Douyin in Chinese) @Indonesia.travel Indonesian and English Global (including Indonesia market) indonesia.travel 印 印印印印印印 Chinese China Figure 3. Indonesia.Travel Social Media Contents on January 2020 Figure 4. Indonesia Tourism Sentiment In- dex by Sprinklr, January 2020 http://www.indonesia.travel/coronavirus http://www.indonesia.travel/coronavirus E-Journal of Tourism Vol.8. No.1. (2021): 1-13 7http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot e-ISSN 2407-392X. p-ISSN 2541-0857 Figure 5. Indonesia.Travel Social Media Contents in February 2020 Figure 6. Indonesia Tourism Sentiment In- dex by Sprinklr, January 2020 March 2020 In March, the social listening tools showed worrying data that 7 of 20 countries got low score of sentiment index: Australia, Hongkong, Malaysia, New Zealand, Rus- sia, Singapore, and United States. On the other hand, Indonesia Travel’s social media accounts kept posting about Covid19 rela- ted information as well as Indonesian tou- rism destinations. Figure 7. Indonesia.Travel Social Media Contents in March 2020 Figure 8. Indonesia Tourism Sentiment In- dex by Sprinklr, March 2020 April 2020 In April, the social listening tools showed worse conditions that 9 of 20 countries got low score of sentiment index: Australia, Hongkong, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, South Africa, Thailand, Uni- ted States, and United Kingdom. New Zea- land, Russia, Singapore, and United States. Meanwhile, MOTCE changed the Wonder- ful Indonesia branding into Thoughtful In- donesia, to show empathy on the pandemic situation. The government also pushed the Stay at Home campaign to curb the virus spread. Furthermore, MOTCE followed the Travel Tomorrow campaign initiated by UNWTO. Those all policies were transla- ted into below social media posts. Figure 9. Indonesia.Travel Social Media Contents in April 2020 E-Journal of Tourism Vol.8. No.1. (2021): 1-13 8http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot e-ISSN 2407-392X. p-ISSN 2541-0857 Figure 10. Indonesia Tourism Sentiment Index by Sprinklr, April 2020 May 2020 In May, the Indonesia Travel social media accounts got steady with the #Sta- yAtHome #TravelTomorrow #Thoughtfu- lIndonesia hashtags, while still showing the beauty of Indonesian tourism destina- tion contents. In the meantime, the social listening tools showed relieving conditions that 19 of 20 countries had high score of sentiment index. It means that the targeted markets had positive perceptions of Indo- nesia tourism topics. Figure 11. Indonesia.Travel Social Media Contents, May 2020 Figure 12. Indonesia Tourism Sentiment Index by Sprinklr, May 2020 June 2020 In June, there is no big changes of go- vernment policy towards foreign tourists. Therefore, the Indonesia Travel social media accounts continued the previous pattern, posting Indonesian tourism desti- nations with #StayAtHome #TravelTomor- row #ThoughtfulIndonesia hashtags. The social listening tools also showed stable condition, with 18 of 20 countries got high score of sentiment index. Figure 13. Indonesia.Travel Social Media Contents, June 2020 Figure 14. Indonesia Tourism Sentiment Index by Sprinklr, June 2020 July 2020 In July, the Indonesia Travel social media accounts continued the previous campaigns and the social listening tools showed 17 of 20 countries had high sco- re of sentiment index, meaning that global markets still had positive perceptions of In- donesian tourism. E-Journal of Tourism Vol.8. No.1. (2021): 1-13 9http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot e-ISSN 2407-392X. p-ISSN 2541-0857 Figure 15. Indonesia.Travel Social Media Contents, July 2020 Figure 16. Indonesia Tourism Sentiment Index by Sprinklr, July 2020 August 2020 There is no big change of the social media campaign for international market this month. The social listening tools also showed the stable condition with 17 of 20 countries had high score of sentiment in- dex. Figure 17. Indonesia.Travel Social Media Contents, August 2020 Figure 18. Indonesia Tourism Sentiment Index by Sprinklr, August 2020 September 2020 In September, the Indonesia Travel social media accounts introduced a new campaign style with asking an international influencer who stay in the country to join the campaign. As a result, the posts about the influencer became the best post in In- donesia Travel’s Instagram account this month. Figure 13. Indonesia.Travel Social Media Contents, September 2020 E-Journal of Tourism Vol.8. No.1. (2021): 1-13 10http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot e-ISSN 2407-392X. p-ISSN 2541-0857 Indonesia Travel Social Media Market- ing Strategy during Covid-19 Pandem- ic: An Analysis From the above social media contents as well as social listening tools data, this paper would discuss and analyze how the social media marketing strategy developed by Indonesia Travel based on Li, Larimo and Leonidou (2020) framework. Drivers The Indonesian government consi- ders tourism as one of the leading sectors in the country. Therefore, all efforts have been done by MOTCE to support the sector, es- pecially the marketing one. The marketing strategy of Indonesian tourism basically aims to build Branding – Awareness – Sel- ling of Indonesian tourism destinations. It was achieved through combination of of- fline marketing activities (i.e. events, sales missions, festivals) and digital ones. One of the important digital marketing strategies was promoting Indonesian tourism through social media channels. In Indonesian case, the social media channel to promote Indo- nesian tourism for the global markets is Indonesia Travel. Targeting those who will visit Indonesia (G2C), Indonesia Travel opens many social media accounts based on market preferences, i.e. Instagram, Fa- cebook, Youtube, Tiktok, WeChat, and Weibo. However, the pandemic situation forced the Indonesian government to stop all offline activities, especially when the country’s borders were all closing in April 2020. Indonesian couldn’t promote tourism destinations abroad as well as foreigners couldn’t come to Indonesia for uncertain times. The situation forced the government to change slightly the marketing objective, currently only to maintain the awareness of Indonesian tourism destinations in po- tential tourists’ minds. As stated by Deputy Minister of Tourism Marketing, Nia Nis- caya, the online promotion and campaign should be optimized in order to build awa- reness in global markets. Hence, it is the time for Indonesia Travel has become the backbone to present Indonesian tourism to the world. On the other hand, the motivations from potential tourists from all over the world also has changed since the pandemic started early this year, especially due to the travel restrictions. They were curious about the pandemic situation in tourism destina- tions, including in Indonesia. Referring to the social listening tools MOTCE used, Sprinklr, there were worrying situation at the beginning of the pandemic when more and more target countries got low scores of sentiment index when we talked about Indonesia Tourism topics in social media environment. In January, there was only Singapore which got sentiment score under 50%. In February, there were three count- ries; in March, there were 7 (seven) of 20 (twenty) countries; and in April, there were 9 (nine) which had low sentiment scores toward Indonesian tourism. Those numbers mean that the countries had negative per- ceptions about Indonesian tourism desti- nations, probably related with the Covid19 situation here. Therefore, the bad situation must be responded with the right action. Inputs Implementing the new direction from government as well as responding on the digital users’ behaviours during pandemic, MOTCE through the Indonesia travel so- cial media team initiated to engage with au- dience through: Posting more information about the current situation regarding CO- VID19 in Indonesia that may be needed by the audiences. Information here are inclu- ding about the immigration or visa, flights, and closed tourist attractions. The detailed articles were published in special landing page Indonesia.travel/coronavirus, so that the social media users can access the site. This initiative has started since February 2020 until now. E-Journal of Tourism Vol.8. No.1. (2021): 1-13 11http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot e-ISSN 2407-392X. p-ISSN 2541-0857 Changing the Wonderful Indonesia logo into Thoughtful Indonesia on April 23rd, 2020 to show empathy on the cur- rent pandemic situation (Kemenparekraf, 2020c). Furthermore, the logo changing also inspired the the Indonesia Travel’s so- cial media contents to be more emphatic to the audience, not to ask them to travel for now. This kind of tone still have been implemented until now. Riding the wave on #StayAtHome campaign while introducing activities at home related with Indonesian tourism and creative economy. For example: how to cook Indonesian food; how to create In- donesian traditional handicrafts; etc. The campaign has been held from April to June 2020. Following #DreamNow #TravelTo- morrow hashtag initiated by UNWTO whi- le posting User Generated Content photos of tourism destinations in Indonesia, from April to this time. Supporting #InDOnesiaCARE move- ment, a policy made by MOTCE originally for the tourism industry (G2B) on July 10th, 2020 (Kemenparekraf, 2020b). This mo- vement was intended to implement Clean- liness, Healthy, Safety, and Environment Sustainability (CHSE) protocols in tourism attractions as well as accommodations in Indonesia. Initiating #FromIndonesiaWithLo- ve campaign for the global market as di- rected by Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy in September 2020. From customers’ perspectives, we can see that the social media user’s beha- viors towards Indonesia tourism issues has become relatively positive from May to September 2020. From 20 target countries, in May 2020 there was only one country which had low score under 50%; then in June 2020 there were two countries; in July 2020 there were three countries; and in Au- gust there were three countries. Throughputs This phase is explained by social con- nectedness as well as social interaction bet- ween the government, which is represented by Indonesia Travel as the official social media accounts, and the customer, which are the followers. During pandemic, Indonesia Travel accounts has been still active. Total they post 683 contents from January to Septem- ber 2020 through: 93 Facebook posts; 312 Instagram posts (Instagram feeds, Insta- gram stories, Instagram TV); 266 Twitter posts; 12 Youtube videos. The contents posted were also varied in order to connect and interact with the au- diences, i.e.: UGC photos; Interactive quiz; Interview with the international influencer who lives in Indonesia; etc. Outputs In 2019, Indonesia Travel followers liked most about Indonesian natural tou- rism destinations and their favourite one is Bali. But, at the early phase of the pande- mic, they wanted more information about Covid19 related information, i.e. immigra- tion or visa, current condition of Covid-19 cases in Indonesia, etc. Indeed, according to the best posts of Indonesia Travel’ Twit- ter account in February and March, con- tents about Covid19 related information were most likeable. It means that the inputs given by Indonesia Travel were matching with what audiences wanted. Moreover, from March to Septem- ber 2020, the audiences tended to be bored with Covid19 related posts and they liked tourism destination contents more. Alt- hough Indonesia Travel has never asked the audience to have holiday during pandemic, the audiences still like and comment on the posts. It might be considered that they miss traveling to destinations like Indone- sia. If we looked at the Engagement Rates of the content posted in Indonesia Travel E-Journal of Tourism Vol.8. No.1. (2021): 1-13 12http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot e-ISSN 2407-392X. p-ISSN 2541-0857 social media accounts, the best post is re- lated with Indonesian tourism destinations, about 3 days 2 nights plan in Bali, which reaches 9.3% point. CONCLUSION The Covid-19 pandemic shook tou- rism industry like no other crises. The tra- vel restrictions to curb the disease sprea- ding had implication to the drastic decrease of international tourist visitors, tourism exports, and jobs loss. Indonesia was no exception. Due to the closing borders, in- ternational tourists from January to August fell down -89.22% year on year. However, even during pandemic, the Indonesian government didn’t stop the mar- keting activities to promote Indonesian tou- rism for the global market. Because of the limitation of offline activities, digital mar- keting – especially social media – has be- come the backbones of Indonesia’s tourism marketing efforts. Indonesian government, in this case is MOTCE, used the official social media marketing accounts, name- ly Indonesia Travel, to promote Indonesi- an tourism through Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, WeChat, and Weibo. From January to September 2020, Indone- sia Travel posted 683 contents through the accounts. The pandemic has driven the Indone- sia Travel accounts to slightly changed the marketing objectives, adapting with what audiences wanted. Not only posting about the beauty of tourism destinations in Indo- nesia, since February they also post about Covid-19 related information. For 3 (three) months, the audiences liked this kind of contents. However, from May to Septem- ber, those potential tourists returned to like and comment the tourism destinations, alt- hough Indonesia Travel has never asked followers to travel during pandemic. According to Li, et al, (2020), the social marketing media strategy has been implemented by MOTCE during pandemic could be categorized as the social content strategy, as the Indonesia Travel accounts focus on suitable contents with the audien- ces who struggle with the pandemic. REFERENCES Creswell, J. W. (2013) Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design Choosing among Five Approaches. Third Edition. Unit- ed States of America: SAGE Publica- tions Ltd. Detik (2020) Wishnutama Gambar- kan Kondisi Pariwisata yang Ba- bak Belur Dihantam Corona. Avail- able at: https://travel.detik.com/ travel-news/d-5017196/wishnutama- gambarkan-kondisi-pariwisata-yang- babak-belur-dihantam-corona (Ac- cessed: 30 November 2020). Jakarta Post (2020) Indonesia bans entry of foreigners to curb spread of coro- navirus. Available at: https://www. thejakartapost.com/news/2020/03/31/ indonesia-bans-entry-of-foreigners- to-curb-spread-of-coronavirus.html (Accessed: 30 November 2020). Jashi, C. (2013, May). Significance of so- cial media marketing in tourism. In 8th Silk Road International Conference “Development of Tourism in Black and Caspian Seas Region”. Tbilisi: Black Sea University Publishing (pp. 37-40). Johns Hopkins University (2020) CO- VID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). Kaplan, A. M. and Haenlein, M. (2010) ‘Users of the world, unite! The chal- lenges and opportunities of Social Media’, Business horizons, 53(1), pp. 59–68. E-Journal of Tourism Vol.8. No.1. (2021): 1-13 13http://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/eot e-ISSN 2407-392X. p-ISSN 2541-0857 Kemenparekraf (2020a) Siaran Pers : Kampanye Pariwisata Indonesia Se- cara Daring Dioptimalkan Selama Masa Pandemi. Available at: https:// www.kemenparekraf.go.id/post/si- aran-pers-kampanye-pariwisata-in- donesia-secara-daring-dioptimalkan- selama-masa-pandemi (Accessed: 30 November 2020). Kemenparekraf (2020b) Siaran Pers : Ke- menparekraf Luncurkan Kampanye Penerapan Protokol Kesehatan ‘In- donesia Care”. Available at: https:// www.kemenparekraf.go.id/post/si- aran-pers-kemenparekraf-luncurkan- kampanye-penerapan-protokol-kes- ehatan-indonesia-care (Accessed: 30 November 2020). Kemenparekraf (2020c) Siaran Pers: Logo Thoughtful Indonesia Sementara Di- gunakan di Masa Pandemi. Available at: https://www.kemenparekraf.go.id/ post/siaran-pers-logo-thoughtful-in- donesia-sementara-digunakan-di-ma- sa-pandemi (Accessed: 30 November 2020). Kotler, P., Bowen, J. T. and Makens, J. C. (2010) Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism (Fifth Edition). New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. Li, F., Larimo, J., & Leonidou, L. C. (2020). Social media marketing strategy: defi- nition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 1-20. Minazzi, R. (2015) ‘Social Media Market- ing in Tourism and Hospitality’. MOTCE and Central Statistics Bureau (2020) Data Kunjungan Wisatawan Mancanegara Bulanan Tahun 2020. UNWTO (2020) ‘International tourism faces deepest crisis in history •’, World Tourism Barometer.