“We’re grateful that a Solo Raya forum is going to be formed after this event with members of the House of Representatives, city administration, regency administration, communities and tourism practitioners in Solo [Surakarta],” said I Gde Pitana, the Tourism Ministry's deputy for overseas promotion.

The forum aims to unite the vision and mission as well as understanding of overseas promotion, especially in Southeast Asia.

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The two-day event was attended by House Commission X  member Laila Istiana, who gave an explanation on the tourism development potential of Solo Raya. Laila emphasized the importance of promotional media, especially social media, which had become a major tool to attract tourists to Surakarta.

“Don’t let tourists only go shopping because they don't know about other destinations in Solo Raya. Road access needs to get fixed and don’t forget to encourage tourists to post about their trip on social media,” said Istiana.

“Solo Raya has a lot of [tourism] potential such as culinary, batik, ecotourism, Sangiran and Dayu,” Istiana added.

Speaking on the same occasion, the head of Karanganyar Tourism Youth and Sports Agency,  Titis Sri Jawoto, talked about the importance of a familiarization trip (famtrip) to invite (overseas) travel agents or tour operators to directly experience the place and later come up with interesting tour packages that they can offer in their own respective countries.

“I hope the Tourism Ministry will facilitate a famtrip event between Bangkok and Solo. Let’s invite travel agents from Thailand to form a partnership with Solo Raya that is facilitated by the Tourism Ministry,” said Jawoto.

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Meanwhile, the owner of Atsiri Museum Paulus Mintarga talked about the cultural value of Solo Raya, which is an important asset and the importance of promotional content.

Irfan Sutikno of the Solo Creative City Network (SCCN) added that the uniqueness of Solo was what needed to be highlighted in the promotion. “Archipelago expedition is possible to be done by copying the Yogyakarta – Solo – Semarang expedition that aims to introduce Joglosemar as The Wonderland of Java,” Sutikno said.

“There are many interesting things in Solo that are not yet developed. When someone says something is ‘kampungan’ (underclass) and it can't be sold, they are totally wrong because ‘kampungan’ actually has high value,” added Alfonsus Aditya, one of the mentoring event's participants. (asw)

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