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Bima to host kingdom, sultanate representatives for 19th royal festival
The city of Bima in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) is set to host the 19th Festival Kraton Nusantara (Royal Festival) from Sept
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he city of Bima in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) is set to host the 19th Festival Kraton Nusantara (Royal Festival) from Sept. 6 to 9.
Some 1,500 participants from 82 kingdoms and sultanates across the archipelago have confirmed their participation in the festival, which will also be attended by more than 50 overseas representatives, including from the Selangor sultanate in Malaysia and the Asmayana kingdom in the Philippines.
'This is part of a biennial festival. In 2012, the festival was held in Bau-Bau, Buton, South Sulawesi, where Bima was announced as the venue for this year. We hope the festival will benefit NTB's tourism promotion, especially on Sumbawa Island,' NTB Tourism and Culture Office head Muhammad Nasir told media in Mataram, NTB, on Wednesday.
The event will boast arts and cultural performances, a royal soldier parade, royal costume and artifact exhibitions, a culinary fair, seminars and dialogs related to kingdoms and sultanates, as well as parades and traditional Bima horse racing.
According to Nasir, Bima was selected as the venue for the festival because it has a deeply historical sultanate. The festival will be centered at Paruga Nae, or the Bima sultanate palace, in the heart of the city.
The event will be opened by officials from the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry, and attended by NTB Governor Muhammad Zainul Majdi and officials from the provincial administration.
'Don't see the festival as part of an effort to revive feudalism. We should value the festival as tourism [promotion] potential because Indonesia is very rich in culture and has engaging local wisdom,' Nasir said.
To anticipate a lack of accommodation due to the small number of hotels in Bima, he said that the Bima municipality and Bima regency administration had prepared a number of residents' homes to become homestays.
NTB Tourism Promotion Board spokesman Fathurozzi Gafar said the event would serve as a strategic means of promotion for tourism in NTB, especially on Sumbawa Island.
'We also promoted the event through tour operators so they could bring in guests to watch the Kraton Nusantara Festival. The event will be of great interest to visitors,' he said.
According to Fathurozzi, NTB is currently promoting the Visit NTB program, Under the program, NTB has targeted 2 million tourist arrivals annually.
