Publica: Jurnal Pemikiran Administrasi Negara Vol 15 No. 2 | Juli 2023: 426-439 P-ISSN 2085-6555 E-ISSN 2715-9256 ================================================================================== Phoebe Inggrid Angeline Romauli, Deasy Silvya Sari “Wonderful Indonesia”: The Strategy of Indonesia Nation Branding on Tourism Recovery during the Covid-19 Pandemic 426 “Wonderful Indonesia”: The Strategy of Indonesia Nation Branding on Tourism Recovery during the Covid-19 Pandemic 1Phoebe Inggrid Angeline Romauli, Deasy Silvya Sari 1Universitas Padjadjaran, Indonesia; Email: phoebe.inggrid@gmail.com Received: February 10, 2023; In Revised: June 09, 2023; Accepted: July 28, 2023 Abstract The Covid-19 pandemic, which has had a significant impact on international mobility restrictions, has caused the global tourism sector to experience a serious setback. This is also felt in Indonesia, which relies on the tourism sector as a source of income. The Covid-19 pandemic has crippled Indonesia's tourism sector, with thousands of hotels closing and millions of workers threatened to be fired. One way to restore the condition of Indonesian tourism is to convince tourists to keep trusting Indonesian tourism by increasing nation branding in the tourism section, namely Wonderful Indonesia. This research used qualitative methods with data collection through literature review. The author uses the theory of nation branding proposed by Dinnie (2015). This research found that the Government of Indonesia has made efforts to recover the tourism sector by implementing nation branding strategies, namely, conducting Wonderful Indonesia nation branding advertisements through websites, social media, and tourism-related media agencies; doing online branding and social media on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, and developing virtual tourism platforms; and then conducting tourism campaigns. Keywords: covid-19, nation branding, recovery, strategy, tourism, Wonderful Indonesia. Introduction Tourism has become the fourth-largest industry in the world and continues to grow by approximately 9% per year (Olins, 2005). Tourism has become a topic of dialogue in high committees of international relations because it has a significant impact on the country's economy (Jalalpour & Shojaeifar, 2014). Many countries rely heavily on the tourism industry for revenue (Roser & Herre, 2017). Tourism can support the interaction of international communities and create a peaceful atmosphere in development, so that it gradually enters the realm of international agreements and agreements, including the formation of organizations that oversee tourism, such as the World Tourism Organization (WTO) (Jalalpour & Shojaeifar, 2014). Tourism has evolved from domestic to international travel. This can be seen from the number of international trips that has doubled since 2000 (Roser & Herre, 2017). The rapid development of information technology and transportation in recent decades has been an important factor in the expansion of global tourism. Along with the changes in a global society that sees things based on the size of consumers, tourism has been recognized as a global phenomenon (Arionesei et al., 2014). Even the growth of mass tourism has made citizens of a mailto:phoebe.inggrid@gmail.com Publica: Jurnal Pemikiran Administrasi Negara Vol 15 No. 2 | Juli 2023: 426-439 P-ISSN 2085-6555 E-ISSN 2715-9256 ================================================================================== Phoebe Inggrid Angeline Romauli, Deasy Silvya Sari “Wonderful Indonesia”: The Strategy of Indonesia Nation Branding on Tourism Recovery during the Covid-19 Pandemic 427 certain nationality have a significant influence in other countries, similar to how diplomats perform consular services as diplomatic representatives (Hocking, 2005). However, the tourism sector has been severely affected by the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic. The occurrence of restrictions on community mobility to break the chain of the spread of Covid-19 resulted in the closure of the borders of countries in the world. This has a direct impact on the decline of global travelers. According to the UNWTO, in 2020, international tourist arrivals decreased by 74% compared with the previous year (UNWTO, 2023). The impact felt in the international tourism sector goes back 30 years (UNWTO 2023). This includes a loss of US$1.3 billion in tourism exports, an estimated loss of more than US$2 billion, and an estimated 100-120 million jobs at risk of closure that are directly related to tourism (UNWTO, 2021). The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the tourism sector has also been felt by Indonesia, especially the drastic decline in foreign tourist arrivals. The total foreign tourist arrivals to Indonesia before the Covid-19 pandemic increased every year (BPS, 2021). However, after the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, Indonesia experienced a drastic decline in foreign tourist arrivals. According to the Indonesian Statistic Center (Badan Pusat Statistik), in 2019, the total number of foreign tourist arrivals to Indonesia was 16,106,954, while after the pandemic, this figure dropped to 4,052,923 in 2020 (BPS, 2021). This decrease in the number of foreign tourist visits fell by 26% from the conditions before the Covid-19 pandemic (BPS, 2021). Indonesia's tourism has decreased dramatically due to the lack of foreign tourist visits in 2020. This can be seen in Indonesia's reduced economic sector, employment, and gross domestic product in tourism. The minimized mobility of tourists results in shrinking revenue for tourism business units; therefore, it is necessary to reduce the workforce and transfer business operating capital (Nugraha, 2021). In 2020, 13 million workers in the tourism sector and 32.5 million workers who depend indirectly on the sector are threatened with layoffs (BPS, 2020). Sectors that indirectly depend on tourism include Parekraf MSMEs, money changers, souvenir shops, dancers, musicians, art workers in tourist areas, suppliers to hotels/restaurants, and malls/retail workers (Rini, 2020). This also has an impact on reducing working hours in the tourism sector by 12.91 million people and 939 thousand other people temporarily unable to work in the tourism sector (BPS, 2020). Indonesia’s impact significantly affects the country's economy. Indonesia is one of the countries that rely on the tourism sector for economic growth, especially as a contributor to foreign exchange and the easiest and cheapest employment (Kominfo, 2017). This is also supported by the view that tourism functions as a catalyst for the development of an area, which can help accelerate the process of development and the economy in a particular region (Yoeti & Pribadi, 2008). Indonesia's rapid tourism growth is greatly influenced by increasing global interest in tourism (Yulliana, 2021). Indonesia's territory, which has a lot of natural beauty and cultural wealth, makes its tourism potential very large for development (Rahma, 2020). Tourism development also has a positive impact on the absorption of human resources in the region so that the unemployment rate can decrease. In 2019, Indonesia's tourism sector also contributed 5.6% to Indonesia’s gross domestic product, which is IDR 934.6 trillion (WTTC, 2022). In the same year, Indonesia ranked 40th in the tourism and travel competitiveness index set by the World Economic Forum (Calderwood & Soshkin, 2019). This ranking moved up two Publica: Jurnal Pemikiran Administrasi Negara Vol 15 No. 2 | Juli 2023: 426-439 P-ISSN 2085-6555 E-ISSN 2715-9256 ================================================================================== Phoebe Inggrid Angeline Romauli, Deasy Silvya Sari “Wonderful Indonesia”: The Strategy of Indonesia Nation Branding on Tourism Recovery during the Covid-19 Pandemic 428 notches two years earlier, when Indonesia ranked 42nd in the index. Indonesia's rise in the global travel and tourism competitiveness index indicates the rapid growth of Indonesian tourism. Thus, the Indonesian government needs to restore the condition of Indonesian tourism so that the losses felt by Indonesia due to the Covid-19 pandemic can be resolved. One way to improve tourism conditions is to use the nation branding process (Pop et al., 2020). Nation branding is a concept where marketing techniques are applied to a country as a brand whose image is constructed and promoted to a specific target (Fan, 2010). The term nation branding was coined in 1996 by Simon Anholt by combining several interrelated identity concepts, namely, political, sociological, cultural, and historical approaches (Anholt on Dinnie, 2008). Nation branding is the concept of how a country promotes its own brand. In carrying out nation branding, a strategy is needed to convey the country's brand that the country wants (Dinnie, 2009). Strategy is important in the implementation of nation branding because it differentiates a country from its neighbors or competitors around the world (Dabija et al., 2014). When a country has a strong nation branding strategy, the country's brand will be more visible and unique when compared to other countries (Pop et al., 2020). In the field of tourism, Indonesia has a national branding named "Wonderful Indonesia" (in Indonesian "Pesona Indonesia") which was established in 2011 to replace the brand "Visit Indonesia" Visit Indonesia’ (Asdhiana, 2011). As reported by Kompas.com, the "Wonderful Indonesia" brand was first introduced in an international forum by the Minister of Culture and Tourism in 2011, Mr. Jero Wacik, at the ASEAN Tourism Ministers meeting in January 17-18, 2011 in Cambodia (Asdhiana, 2011). Wonderful Indonesia continues to be used to become Indonesia's nation branding in the tourism sector and has proven to work well along with the receipt of the award "The Best Government Collaboration for Nation Branding" in the Indonesia Brand Forum (IBF) Awarding 2022 (PPID, 2022). Nation branding "Wonderful Indonesia" has succeeded in increasing foreign tourist visits to Indonesia. During this pandemic, the Indonesian government continues to carry out nation branding "Wonderful Indonesia" to maintain Indonesia's image as an attractive country to visit and restore Indonesia's tourism conditions that have been disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, the author is interested in examining the "Wonderful Indonesia" nation branding strategy used by the Indonesian state as an effort to restore tourism conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic. The novelty of this research is categorized into two clusters: (1) the Covid-19 pandemic and tourism recovery and (2) nation branding strategies. The first cluster explains how the Covid-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the tourism sector, as discussed in Adam (2022), Nawawi (2021), and Nugraha (2021). The tourism sector suffered huge losses, and even income from the sector was reduced by 70% compared to before the Covid-19 pandemic (Nugraha, 2021). This is also supported by the fact that the tourism sector is closely related to its supporting sectors, so it is vulnerable to disruption in the event of natural or non-natural disasters (Adam, 2022). The disrupted tourism sector also paralyzes the economic sector, because many businesses are driven by tourism (Nawawi, 2021). Therefore, a strategy is required to restore the tourism situation affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The second cluster explains the importance of nation branding strategies in restoring tourism conditions; however, this has not been widely studied. It can be seen from the connected lines in Figure 1 that only the "strategy" and "tourism" parts, but there is no line connecting Publica: Jurnal Pemikiran Administrasi Negara Vol 15 No. 2 | Juli 2023: 426-439 P-ISSN 2085-6555 E-ISSN 2715-9256 ================================================================================== Phoebe Inggrid Angeline Romauli, Deasy Silvya Sari “Wonderful Indonesia”: The Strategy of Indonesia Nation Branding on Tourism Recovery during the Covid-19 Pandemic 429 "nation branding" with "tourism" or "recovery". This can be supported by articles from Hassan and Mahrous (2019), Pop, Baba, Anysz, and Tohanean (2020), Sarana & Sari (2022) and Utami & Gaffar (2016) which show that nation branding strategies can improve tourism conditions. However, how Wonderful Indonesia itself was developed to improve Indonesian tourism has not been discussed. There are still few discussions on Indonesia's nation branding to the strategy stage, even though the strategy is an important component in increasing tourism competitiveness (Hassan & Mahrous, 2019). To examine this research, the author use the nation branding strategy from Keith Dinnie (2015). There are several important principles that must be considered to be able to formulate a nation branding strategy that is qualified, although currently there is no steady framework in making a nation branding strategy for a country (Dinnie, 2015). There are 11 elements of nation branding strategy, but the author only focuses on three : a. Nation-brand advertising In the process of nation-brand advertising, it requires a qualified understanding of the intended target market, the ability to find common threads in advertisements, the foresight to be able to create attractive advertisements but still convey the intended meaning of the advertisement, pay attention to the change of advertisements so that they are not too frequent and do not lean towards the frequency of advertisements rather than their quality. This advertising can be produced by working with an advertising creative agency to help conceptualize advertising. b. Online branding, social media, and mobile applications Online branding allows countries with less economic capacity to compete with superpowers because they have the opportunity to represent their country in a nation- brand with a smaller budget. Online branding can stimulate public attention by using seeding trials, viral advertising, nation-brand related programs, and involvement of key opinion leaders (KOLs) or influencers. Social media and mobile apps are also important tools in utilizing consumer-driven content. Both can be used to tap into the individual bonds of the public as almost the entire society currently uses them. c. Public Relations In building public relations (PR), governments can work with PR agencies to integrate other elements of the strategy to deliver the national brand well. Sometimes, public relations are only used as a crisis management tool when a problem occurs, whereas building good public relations can foster good international perceptions in the general public, even in certain target audiences such as policy-making actors and journalists. Method The approach used in this study was qualitative. Qualitative research uses approaches or searches to explore central phenomena that can be understood through interviews and literature searches (Creswell, 2009). This approach relies on text and images, and has unique analytical steps that utilize various strategies of inquiry (Creswell, 2009). Through this approach, the research topic can be seen, namely, the nation branding strategy used by Indonesia to restore the condition of its tourism sector during the Covid-19 pandemic. The author uses a qualitative Publica: Jurnal Pemikiran Administrasi Negara Vol 15 No. 2 | Juli 2023: 426-439 P-ISSN 2085-6555 E-ISSN 2715-9256 ================================================================================== Phoebe Inggrid Angeline Romauli, Deasy Silvya Sari “Wonderful Indonesia”: The Strategy of Indonesia Nation Branding on Tourism Recovery during the Covid-19 Pandemic 430 analysis approach because the data that the author uses are descriptive in nature, obtained from sources and various related literature. This research will be interpretative because the data obtained by the author will be processed and interpreted as the results of the research. It is hoped that the selection of a qualitative approach in this study can provide factual information and present facts that can be accounted for according to the topic of this research. Results and Discussion Nation Branding Advertising During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Indonesian government aggressively promoted Wonderful Indonesia, especially Enchantment Bali and the five Super Priority Tourism Destinations (in Indonesian "Destinasi Pariwisata Super Prioritas” or “DPSP"). The five DPSPs are Lake Toba, Borobudur Temple, Labuan Bajo, Mandalika, and Likupang (Khairally, 2019). Although DPSP is a program initiated by the President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, at the end of 2019, during the Covid-19 pandemic the Indonesian government actively introduced five DPSPs to the international community. One of them is participating in enlivening the 2022 Qatar World Cup event by installing digital billboards at several strategic points and installing Wonderful Indonesia branding on single- and double-decker buses in Qatar (Kompas.com, 2022). The large number of visitors at the event became an effective momentum to disseminate information about Wonderful Indonesia, especially Pesona Bali and DPSP, to tourists there and the 2022 World Cup audience (Kompas.com, 2022). Indonesia also cooperates with several outside media agencies to promote Wonderful Indonesia. One example is working with the AXN Asia television channel by creating the Ultimate Challenge Indonesia program, which is aired on the AXN Asia television channel or broadcast live on the AXN Asia YouTube channel (AXN Asia, 2021). The program, which includes Indonesian artists such as Afgan, Reza Chandika, Isyana Sarasvati, Rara Sekar, and Richard Kyle, also shows the beauty of the Bali Enchantment and two other DPSPs, namely Labuan Bajo and Mandalika (AXN Asia, 2021). In addition, on the YouTube platform, Indonesia collaborates with a television channel owned by Warner Bros Discovery, namely Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific. Indonesia collaborated to create two contents in collaboration with subsidiaries under Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific: TLC Southeast Asia (SEA), a television channel that airs in Southeast Asia, and the Asian Food Network (AFN), an Asian culinary website. With TLC SEA, Indonesia created the content "Indonesia's Best Ever Destinations" (Taylor, 2022a). This content contained the five best destinations in Indonesia selected by TLC SEA, but the five destinations included in the content were the five Indonesian DPSPs. Similarly, the content that Indonesia created when collaborating with AFN, namely "Indonesia's Best Ever Eats" contains Indonesian culinary choices from five DPSPs (Taylor, 2022b). In addition, Indonesia collaborated with the OTT platform Netflix to create a Netflix original series that showcases Indonesia's natural and cultural beauty (Wonderful Indonesia, 2022a). There are four Netflix original series titles in this collaboration: "Our Great National Parks" (Gunung Leuser, Aceh), "Street Food Asia" (Yogyakarta), "A Perfect Fit" (Bali) and "Our Planet" (Raja Ampat, Papua) (Wonderful Indonesia, 2022). These four Netflix original series titles were created to promote the beauty of Indonesia to the international community, especially to Netflix viewers who are interested in natural scenery. The Indonesian government also works with outside production houses to create content that will be used by Wonderful Indonesia itself. An example is the content "It's Time For Bali, Tourism Film for Reopening of Publica: Jurnal Pemikiran Administrasi Negara Vol 15 No. 2 | Juli 2023: 426-439 P-ISSN 2085-6555 E-ISSN 2715-9256 ================================================================================== Phoebe Inggrid Angeline Romauli, Deasy Silvya Sari “Wonderful Indonesia”: The Strategy of Indonesia Nation Branding on Tourism Recovery during the Covid-19 Pandemic 431 Bali" launched by Wonderful Indonesia to advertise the reopening of Bali in 2023. This commercial product was produced by BBC Storyworks Commercial Production for publicity and media purposes in Wonderful Indonesia (Randelovic, 2023). Then there is the video collaboration with Janice Angelica, an Indonesian producer who has studied film in China and won the "Best Film" and "Best Cinematography" awards in the 2017 CCTV China film competition for her work entitled 'Little Giant' (Garmina, 2017). Later, Janice built a film studio with Bing Bang and collaborated with Wonderful Indonesia to make a short film entitled 'Lost Heartbeat'. This film represents people who keep their dreams of traveling alive even though they are going through the Covid-19 pandemic. It is intended that people who watch it can still have enthusiasm for traveling after the Covid-19 pandemic conditions can be better controlled. Wonderful Indonesia also often collaborates with tourist attractions to promote the nation branding. One example is when Wonderful Indonesia was presented at the West Vancouver Ferry Building Gallery by Peter Langer, a well-known tourism photographer and writer in Canada (KJRI Vancouver, 2020). To promote Wonderful Indonesia, the Indonesian government has also participated in several travel expansion events held during the Covid-19 pandemic. At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Indonesia participated in the WTM (World Travel Market) London 2020, which was held online. Indonesia used this opportunity to express sympathy for the damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, but at the same time, still provides an invitation to the international community to remember the beauty and charm of Indonesia as a tourist spot (Niscaya, 2020). By opening remarks made by the Deputy of Marketing of the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, Nia Niscaya, Wonderful Indonesia conveyed to the global public that InDOnesia CARE strives to continue providing the best health protocols in the Indonesian tourism sector (Niscaya 2020). In 2021, Wonderful Indonesia participated in the ITB Berlin NOW 2021 event after failing to participate in the previous year due to the event being canceled by the organizers as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic (Uno, 2021). Indonesia continues to actively participate in the Travel Expo organized globally so that Indonesian tourism continues to exist in the international market and has become the first choice of people when returning to activities before the Covid-19 pandemic (Uno, 2021). By 2023, the Indonesian government became more active in participating in the Travel Expo to promote Wonderful Indonesia. In March 2023, Wonderful Indonesia participated in the MATTA Fair 2023 at MITEC, Kuala Lumpur. To increase interaction with visitors, Wonderful Indonesia held a competition and provided prizes to the winners. In April 2023, Wonderful Indonesia took part in the Vietnam International Travel Mart (VITM) 2023, which was held offline at the Hanoi International Exhibition Center. In this exhibition, Wonderful Indonesia actively provided quizzes and prizes to its visitors. An ATM (Arabian Travel Market) Dubai 2023 was attended offline by Wonderful Indonesia. Based on the video on its official YouTube channel, Wonderful Indonesia managed to get 59 thousand potential tourists from the Wonderful Indonesia booth. In addition, Wonderful Indonesia managed to make transactions amounting to 92.9 million US dollars, with 41 tourism industry players who came to ATM in 2023. The magnitude of the achievement obtained by Indonesia and the fact that the results of the exhibition were published via video indicate that the Indonesian government is trying to Publica: Jurnal Pemikiran Administrasi Negara Vol 15 No. 2 | Juli 2023: 426-439 P-ISSN 2085-6555 E-ISSN 2715-9256 ================================================================================== Phoebe Inggrid Angeline Romauli, Deasy Silvya Sari “Wonderful Indonesia”: The Strategy of Indonesia Nation Branding on Tourism Recovery during the Covid-19 Pandemic 432 attract more tourists from the Middle East region. This can also be seen in how Indonesia and the Emirates signed an MoU as a sign of renewal of the current agreement. Online Branding, Social Media, and Mobile Applications During the Covid-19 pandemic, Wonderful Indonesia has been actively conducting online branding through its official website and social media. The strategy used by Wonderful Indonesia is media familiarization, which is the use of media to present experiences and excitement to the audience so that they feel familiar with the situation and want the same thing so that they will decide to do the same thing (Contented Traveller, 2018). Using this method, the audience is made to believe what they see through the media and build a willingness to try something similar. Usually, Wonderful Indonesia cooperates with KOLs or influencers in appropriate fields, such as travel bloggers, travel agents, and travel YouTubers. In other words, Wonderful Indonesia shows the experiences and sights that can be found in Indonesia directly by working with KOLs who already have their own audiences, so that they can sympathize and feel familiar with the activities carried out by these KOLs. The sense of sympathy and familiarity gained from watching KOL can ultimately encourage viewers to travel in Indonesia. Indonesia's invitations to foreign tourists are also carried out through advertising programs. In the previous section, the author explained that Wonderful Indonesia collaborated with Netflix to create a movie series that shows the natural beauty of Indonesia. This cooperation is carried out to share the experience and natural scenery of Indonesia through movies/serials that can ultimately convey a sense of fun and excitement displayed through footage. This can arouse the audience’s curiosity and motivate them to feel the same by traveling directly to Indonesia. For content that works with KOLs or influencers, the method used is an influencer outreach initiative that involves people who have influence over a certain target audience to introduce or increase their recognition of a particular brand (Dinnie, 2015). On the Wonderful Indonesia YouTube channel, there is a new segment in Indonesia, namely a music session with beautiful natural scenery. Usually, the time is adjusted to hours of light to dark because it can describe the beautiful natural scenery of Indonesia, especially the horizon that changes color when the sun sets or rises. In this segment, Wonderful Indonesia collaborated with various Indonesian and foreign musicians. Here are some videos produced in collaboration with renowned musicians. In the video titled "APSARA Sunset Session at Taka Makassar, Labuan Bajo, East Nusa Tenggara", Wonderful Indonesia collaborated with Japanese DJ APSARA, who played music at Taka Makassar Beach during sunset session. In this video, there are beauty shots that show the beauty of Indonesia's nature when the sun sets, especially on beaches. While accompanied by the music of Japanese musicians APSARA, the audience was presented with the charm of the Labuan Bajo skyline at sunset. Then, in the video titled "Memora #ItsIndonesia : Bottlesmoker live at Capella Ubud, Bali" featuring Bandung-based electronic music duo Bottlesmoker. They performed an electronic music performance using fruits at the Capella Ubud Hotel, which received an award as the 100 Best Hotels in the World. In addition, Wonderful Indonesia also collaborated with other well-known Indonesian musicians, such as Ninda Felina, Nadin Amizah, and Teddy Adhitya. Another method used by Wonderful Indonesia is seeding trials, a brand marketing strategy that infuses its brand in several forms of media content relevant to the brand, both Publica: Jurnal Pemikiran Administrasi Negara Vol 15 No. 2 | Juli 2023: 426-439 P-ISSN 2085-6555 E-ISSN 2715-9256 ================================================================================== Phoebe Inggrid Angeline Romauli, Deasy Silvya Sari “Wonderful Indonesia”: The Strategy of Indonesia Nation Branding on Tourism Recovery during the Covid-19 Pandemic 433 physically and digitally, such as blogs and infographics (Deskera, 2023). The Indonesian government has incorporated the Wonderful Indonesia brand into various media to spread brand awareness, especially to the desired target market. Brand awareness is a marketing term that refers to the extent to which consumers can identify a product using its name (Copp, 2022). In this online branding, Wonderful Indonesia conducted seeding trials on social media content related to travel. Wonderful Indonesia used a specially created hashtag to enliven and increased the international public’s attention to the open return of Indonesian tourism. This hashtag can be seen on social media and in Wonderful Indonesia-related events. Hashtags are used to organize and facilitate the search for information. Using the hashtag on every Wonderful Indonesia event and upload, other related information can be easily searched. The hashtags used in the early days of the pandemic invited the public to stay at home and temporarily postpone the desire to travel. This was done to gain public sympathy and strengthen the public, who at that time had just been affected by the Covid- 19 pandemic. But still several times interspersed with hashtags that show a sense of longing to return to travel, with the aim that the public will still be interested in traveling again when the pandemic is more under control, Some of the hashtags used in the early days of the pandemic (2020) are, #WonderfulIndonesia, #StayatHome, #ExploreTomorrow #StrongerTogether, #TravelTomorrow, and #IMissLabuanBajo. When the pandemic was under control and vaccines were well distributed, Wonderful Indonesia added several hashtags that carried the message to return to Indonesia. The hashtags used were as follows: #ItsTimeforBali, #DiIndonesiaAja, #ItsIndonesia, and #FromIndonesiaWithLove. Wonderful Indonesia has also changed the usernames of all official social media. Through Wonderful Indonesia's YouTube channel, a video containing the new names of Wonderful Indonesia’s social media was uploaded. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube accounts, which were originally named "@indtravel,” were changed to "@wonderfulindonesia" for Instagram), "@WonderfulIndonesiaINA" for Facebook, "@wonderfulid" for Twitter and TikTok, and "Wonderful Indonesia. This username change is intended to make the name "Wonderful Indonesia" more memorable and attached to the public (Wonderful Indonesia, 2022b). By replacing all of Wonderful Indonesia's official social media with its direct name, when the public searches for its username, what they see is Wonderful Indonesia, not "indtravel" anymore. This will further strengthen the public's memory and perception of Wonderful Indonesia. Through the video, Wonderful Indonesia also invites the public to get to know and actively participate in the adventure not only in Indonesia but also in each person watching. This new concept was developed by Wonderful Indonesia to further involve the public in the Wonderful Indonesia brand (Wonderful Indonesia, 2022b). By inviting the public to discover their own self-discovery, the public feels involved and is more likely to desire to participate in Wonderful Indonesia. Wonderful Indonesia continues to make posts to attract public attention through its official social media. However, posts on Wonderful Indonesia's official Facebook page stopped during the early days of the pandemic. The last date of the upload was April 7, 2020. During the early stages of Covid-19 pandemic (March-April 2020), Wonderful Indonesia’s official Facebook page was quite routine in uploading things related to tourism and the Covid-19 pandemic, such as information and appeals. However, there were no more uploads until the time of writing. Indeed, in previous years, Wonderful Indonesia's Facebook upload was no longer regular. This should be reviewed by the marketing department of Wonderful Indonesia. Publica: Jurnal Pemikiran Administrasi Negara Vol 15 No. 2 | Juli 2023: 426-439 P-ISSN 2085-6555 E-ISSN 2715-9256 ================================================================================== Phoebe Inggrid Angeline Romauli, Deasy Silvya Sari “Wonderful Indonesia”: The Strategy of Indonesia Nation Branding on Tourism Recovery during the Covid-19 Pandemic 434 Even so, other social media platforms continue to upload content regularly, even becoming more active than before the pandemic. On Wonderful Indonesia's TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube accounts, the content displayed is more directed towards showing the natural beauty and fun that can be achieved in Indonesia. This is in accordance with the characteristics of social media. In another case on Instagram social media, Wonderful Indonesia interacted more with followers through its uploads. Not only uploading videos or photos containing scenery, activities, culture, and others, but also providing interacting content such as give away, quizzes, tips, tricks, and other content that invites more interaction from followers. The selection of content in Wonderful Indonesia's social media needs to be appreciated because the content is not necessarily recycled for use in all social media, but the type and communication of the content is very much considered according to the characteristics of each social media. Finally, Wonderful Indonesia does not have a mobile application, but during this pandemic the Indonesian government developed a virtual tourism platform that was widely used during the early days of the pandemic. At that time, the tourism sector hit hard, and people could not physically travel. Therefore, technological innovation was used to help the tourism sector survive the crisis (Kemenparekraf, 2020b). The first virtual tour activities organized were virtual tours from PT Kereta Api Pariwisata entitled "Virtual Tours The Legend Jogja" and "Virtual Tour de Lawang Sewu" (Kemenparekraf, 2020b). These tours were conducted through the Zoom application so that viewers could experience the train tour as if riding a train. In addition, there is a virtual tour service organized by Ragunan Zoo to show the activities of the animals, introduce the habitat of the animals, how they survive, and the status of the animal population that is performing attractions (Kemenparekraf, 2020b). Virtual tourism continues to be developed so that the content is already very diverse from various tourist destinations, such as museums, art performances and performances, natural panoramas, culture, and the atmosphere of metropolitan life in Indonesia. By following or viewing this virtual tour, prospective tourists are expected to gain the experience of being in the destination they want, so as to encourage their desire to travel. Wonderful Indonesia also featured 360-degree virtual tours when participating in the ITB Asia 2020. Indonesia has installed a virtual interactive booth that can interact with users to determine their desired travel. This technology invites users to conduct virtual explorations related to tourist destinations in Indonesia and shows the best places to visit when traveling in Indonesia. In addition, Wonderful Indonesia developed a page for virtual travel around Indonesia. On the official website of Wonderful Indonesia, there is a section that explores Indonesia virtually through 360-degree videos and photos. The tourist destinations that can be visited on this page are Bintan, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Bali, Wakatobi, Raja Ampat, and Banyuwangi. One of Wonderful Indonesia's co-branding partners engaged as a production house for virtual reality (VR) content creation, Visual Anak Negeri, also launched the "Indonesia Virtual Tour" program, which contains VR technology with 360-degree tourism visualization (Visual Anak Negeri, 2023). There are various types of virtual tours offered on this page, such as VR business tours, tourism destinations, interesting icons, tourist activities, and art performances. The virtual tour can be accessed through the official Indonesian virtual tour page. Publica: Jurnal Pemikiran Administrasi Negara Vol 15 No. 2 | Juli 2023: 426-439 P-ISSN 2085-6555 E-ISSN 2715-9256 ================================================================================== Phoebe Inggrid Angeline Romauli, Deasy Silvya Sari “Wonderful Indonesia”: The Strategy of Indonesia Nation Branding on Tourism Recovery during the Covid-19 Pandemic 435 Public Relations Wonderful Indonesia made several changes to its messaging during the Covid-19 pandemic. One of them is the InDOnesia CARE or I DO CARE campaign, which is an initiative of the Indonesian tourism sector to make cleanliness, health, safety, and environmental sustainability a top priority in tourism operations in 2020 (Indonesia Travel, 2020). In this campaign, there are two markers given by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, namely the I DO CARE label and CHSE certification given to businesses, public facilities, community environments, and tourism destinations that meet the new criteria and indicators of Indonesian tourism: Cleanliness, Health, Safety, and Environment Sustainability (CHSE) (Indonesia Travel, 2020). The CHSE standard was developed to ensure that Indonesia's cleanliness, health, safety, and environmental sustainability were optimal, especially when foreign tourists began to regain confidence in traveling in Indonesia (Kemenparekraf, 2020a). According to the Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy of the Republic of Indonesia, Sandiaga Uno, in his opening remarks at the opening ceremony of ITB Berlin NOW 2021, the InDOnesia CARE and CHSE Programs aimed to restore Indonesia's tourism conditions on the ground and strengthen the marketing of the nation branding Wonderful Indonesia (Uno, 2021). Previously, Indonesia's efforts to ensure that the protocol ran smoothly by implementing InDOnesia CARE and CHSE were also conveyed by Nia Niscaya, Deputy for Marketing Development II, in the opening remarks of WTM London 2020 (Niscaya, 2020). Indonesia has also reassured the international public about the safety of traveling in Indonesia by creating a narrative that travels in Indonesia, the majority of which is nature tourism, will have a lower risk of contracting Covid-19 because it is an open place (Sandi, 2020). In other words, Indonesia, as a tourist destination that relies on nature tourism in this case, benefits from having a safer image for traveling compared to tourist destinations that are mostly cities or closed spaces. In addition, public communication delivered through Wonderful Indonesia also illustrates that Indonesia continues to support the international community's decision to stay at home, even though it implies a longing for a vacation back in Indonesia. This strategy is adopted so that the international community can still feel the sentiment brought by Indonesia, that they care about the current situation, while still providing a message to return to travel again. This conveys an image of the Covid-19 pandemic situation because if Wonderful Indonesia continues to promote travel, it will hurt Indonesia's image, which seems indifferent to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, if it only supports mobility restrictions, it will contradict Wonderful Indonesia's original goal of bringing tourists to Indonesia. This is called contextual branding, when the brand's main communication is added with other branding that fits the context of the current situation. By inviting viewers to stay at home while reminding them of their longing to travel, Wonderful Indonesia can provide sympathy while promoting Indonesian tourism. On the Wonderful Indonesia YouTube channel, commercial videos are used to publicize Wonderful Indonesia. The videos were also equipped with subtitles and foreign-language dubbing. There is a video titled "InDOnesia CARE - Newest Regulations Regarding International Travel to Indonesia" which shows that Indonesia is ready to receive foreign tourists back to Indonesia with all the regulations that have been adjusted to facilitate foreign tourists traveling to Indonesia. This graphic video has five versions: English, French, Chinese, Publica: Jurnal Pemikiran Administrasi Negara Vol 15 No. 2 | Juli 2023: 426-439 P-ISSN 2085-6555 E-ISSN 2715-9256 ================================================================================== Phoebe Inggrid Angeline Romauli, Deasy Silvya Sari “Wonderful Indonesia”: The Strategy of Indonesia Nation Branding on Tourism Recovery during the Covid-19 Pandemic 436 Japanese, and Korean. In addition, there is a video entitled "We're Waiting For You, See You in Indonesia" which contains Wonderful Indonesia's invitation to foreign tourists to return to visit Indonesia. This video has two versions, English and Korean. Another example is a video titled "Bali's New Era, " which is provided with Japanese subtitles. Conclusion To recover tourism from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Indonesian government through Wonderful Indonesia aggressively promoted domestic tourism through the five DPSPs. Wonderful Indonesia focused more on its marketing strategy, using digital campaigns and virtual experiences. Wonderful Indonesia utilized and built a dedicated digital platform to provide virtual experiences, online campaigns, and engaging content to showcase the country's attractions and cultural heritage. 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