Indonesia Sustainable Tourism Resilience in the COVID-19 Pandemic Era: Case Study of Five Indonesian Super- priority Destinations

2. Technological innovation

Technological innovation is a category related to the use of technology and information to create tourism resilience in the COVID-19 era. This pandemic provides an opportunity for relevant stakeholders to accelerate technological change in tourism destinations (Sharma et al., 2021). Technology utilization in the tourism sector is not only beneficially for providing information related to tourism activities in the COVID-19 era but also for helping health protocols implementation in the new normal era, such as limiting the number of tourists and so on (Assaf & Scuderi, 2020; Stankov et al., 2020).

The sentiment analysis result related to technological innovation shows a fairly high positive sentiment (13 data or 65%). It means that most of Indonesia tourism destinations are beginning to integrate with technology. Most of the reviews related to technology in five of Indonesia super-priority tourism destinations discuss technological instruments owned or brought by tourists, especially cameras to take pictures [camera (8%), photo (3%) and picture (4%)]. Based on Figure 5, it is known that among the five super-priority tourism destinations in Indonesia, Borobudur Temple is the most integrated tourist destination with technology [Borobudur (3%), and Yogyakarta (3%)] compared to other tourist destinations.

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Although the technological innovation sentiment in Indonesian tourism destinations is particularly positive, yet there are some negative sentiments since there is a lot of information related to tourism activities that are difficult to obtain via internet. For example:

Drove all the way from Jogja on a scooter at 3am to experience the sunrise. Looked up e temple online the night before to make sure there were no closures. When I got there they said temple was closed, but zone one was open you just couldn’t go to the inner temple. This was false and barely got within 200 meters of the temple before they had it all blocked off. They should of posted this on their website or made it extremely clear at the gate. They then claimed since my ticket had been scanned I couldn’t get a refund…. I was there for all of 10 mins. Such a disappointment! The staff were not helpful!

Tourism activities during the COVID-19 era fluctuated following the pandemic conditions. In case online access regarding tourism activities such as the operational schedule of tourist areas, restrictions on the number of visitors, restriction on tourist area zones, information related to transportation, and accommodation is needed by tourists. However, down to 2021, Borobudur Temple, Komodo National Park and Lake Toba are the destinations that can easily find information related to their tourism activities online through social media. Most of their social media activities began in mid-2020. The lack of easy access to official information related to tourism destinations can reduce the resilience of destinations during the COVID-19 pandemic and vice versa (Spenceley et al., 2021).

3. Sense of belonging a tourist area by local people

The sense of belonging to a tourist area by local communities is a category related to the role of local communities in tourism resilience. They have an important role in local tourism resilience, it is because people globally get difficulties in long-distance travel activities during the pandemic (Sharma et al., 2021). In 2020, almost all countries will impose international travel restrictions (travel bans and travel restrictions) both from outside and from within to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic (Chinazzi et al., 2020; Iacus et al., 2020; Ma et al., 2020; Tsoukas, 2020). In case, nowadays, Indonesian tourism activity depends on the domestic community to visit local tourist destinations around their residence (Kusuma, 2020). But this activity cannot be done efficiently because local people are still not feeling well to start doing tourism activity in a new normal era. Many local people still have travel anxiety, especially individuals or communities infected with COVID-19 previously, which makes it difficult to remobilize tourism activity by relying only on local people as tourists (Abbas et al., 2021; Yamin et al., 2021).

The sentiment analysis results related to local communities sense of belonging to a tourist area are mostly positive (22 data or 59.46%). It shows that the majority of local communities have greatly benefited from tourism activities in Indonesia. In case local people voluntarily try to maintain the tourists, area and make visitors comfortable while in the tourist area. Generally, they are fluent in English, friendly and always try to promote other tourist destinations around the Magelang and Yogyakarta areas, such as Prambanan Temple.

The sense of belonging is also owned by the surrounding community in a tourist site, especially in Borobudur Temple. In Figure 6, it can be seen that tour guides have an important role in this category, it showed by a word like a guide (6%), history (3%), site (3%) and statue (1%). Most of them are consist from local people that good at telling the history and stories of the reliefs found on the walls of Borobudur Temple to tourists. But since COVID-19 hit Indonesia, many of them lost their jobs and became unemployed or changed their jobs to survive.

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4. Confidence of consumers and tourism managers

This category is related to tourism managers’ confidence to restart tourism activities according to health protocol rules and the new normal in tourist areas (Sharma et al., 2021). Based on the sentiment analysis result, it has a fairly high positive sentiment value (42 data or 75% data). It shows that tourism managers and consumers believe that tourism activities are needed to support the Indonesian economy during COVID-19.

The result of data analysis related to the category of consumer confidence and tourism managers shows that tourists are still trying to carry out tourism activities during the COVID-19 era. On the other hand, tourism managers are also trying to open tourist areas by health protocols and new normal rules. In can be seen in Figure 7, especially on the keywords visit (5%), explain (2%) and walk (2%). The word ‘visit’ refers to tourists who keep trying to carry out tourist activities by visiting local tourism destinations. While ‘explain’ refers to the role of tourism managers in explaining the importance of complying with health protocol rules and the new normal to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic when carrying out tourist activities. It matters that positively support Indonesia tourism resilience in the COVID-19 era.

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Indonesia tourism activity during the COVID-19 has a pro and cons related to the environment sustainability in tourism sites, especially in natural capital-based tourism such as Labuan Bajo, Likupang and Toba Lake. In high maintenance areas like Labuan Bajo, tourism managers have an important role in maintaining the sustainability of the environment and biodiversity surrounding them, especially the sacred animal ‘Komodo Dragon’. Previously, this activity could be done efficiently because there is an income from tourists and no risk of illness and death when carrying out the tourism activities. Since April 2020, when the government enforced total lockdown and closed all tourism sites, this activity cannot be done well because of various reasons, even if the new normal era in 2021 (Spenceley et al., 2021).

Contrarily, in low-maintenance natural capital-based tourism such as Likupang and Toba Lake, the absence of consumers and tourism managers during the COVID-19 reduces environmental and congestion (Hartono et al., 2021; Ihsan et al., 2022; Spenceley et al., 2021). COVID-19 gives the environment and biodiversity surrounding them to rest and recover after being exploited through tourism activity (Dewi, 2020). It also gives the time to related stakeholders to think and develop more sustainable tourism activities to support the reduction of climate change and biodiversity loss in the near future (Spenceley et al., 2021).

5. Analysis of Indonesia sustainable tourism resilience

Based on the analysis result, it shows that not all categories affect the Indonesian tourism resilience in the COVID-19 era. Based on Figure 8, the consumer confidence and tourism management (0.12) is the category that most influences Indonesian tourism resilience, followed by the government response category (0.09) and the sense of belonging to the tourist area (0.04). Meanwhile, technological innovation does not affect Indonesian tourism resilience (0.00).

The category of consumer confidence and tourism managers shows the pros and cons for tourism activities during the COVID-19 era. It is shown by the public interest in continuing to carry out tourism activities in the COVID-19 era even though they only visit local destinations closest to their residence. This condition set up pros and cons in Indonesia, especially during the peak season, such as December–January and May–June (Wibowo et al., 2019). The pros consist of the people who like to do ‘revenge tourism’ activity. They believe the public deserves doing trip as a gift for enduring the COVID-19 prevention activity (Oktaviani & Sutisna, 2021). The cons consist of the people experiencing travel and tourism anciety, especially during the peak season. They believe tourism sites will create a new pandemic cluster and they will get infected during travel activity or cannot go home because of the following regulations such as a local lockdown or public transportation lockdown (Wachyuni & Kusumaningrum, 2020).

In the ecological perspective, tourism managers confidence also has an impact on Indonesia tourism activity. The COVID-19 pandemic makes people aware of the importance of environmental conservation and healthcare. This causes a change in the trend of tourism activity more into sustainable tourism and wellness tourism (Putu et al., 2021; Yamin et al., 2021). These changes force the tourism managers to adjust their activity to become resilient during the new normal era.

The government response category has a considerable influence on Indonesia tourism resilience in the COVID-19 era. It relates to consumer confidence and the tourism managers category. The Indonesia tourism activities implementation during the COVID-19 era depends on the government decisions. It is the application of health protocol rules and the new normal, as well as the readiness of tourism managers to stop or close tourist areas at any time during the pandemic when the number of cases is getting high or endangering the community (Mutiarin et al., 2021).

The third influenced category on Indonesia tourism resilience is the community sense of belonging to a tourist area. Local communities have an important influence on tourism activities in the COVID-19 era, it is because most tourists who visit tourist areas are local people. The travel restrictions rules that some countries have implemented since 2020 make it difficult for foreigners to come to Indonesia for tourism purposes and vice versa (Chinazzi et al., 2020; Iacus et al., 2020; Ma et al., 2020; Tsoukas, 2020). On the contrary, local people still do not feel like starting tourism activity in a normal new era. Many local people still have travel anxiety, especially individuals or communities infected with COVID-19 previously. This condition hurts the local community sense of belonging.

Currently, many people from local community starting to lose their sense of belonging in tourism sites because many of them losing their job in tourism activity since COVID-19 hit Indonesia. This problem can be resolved by creating innovative ways of supporting tourist-dependent communities by utilizing local potential (Spenceley et al., 2021). For example, by creating digital content on the theme of history or folklore of a particular site to attract tourists and increase tourism value during COVID-19. This activity will increase Indonesia tourism resilience and create a more diverse income stream for local people and the local economy in the long term.

The last is the category related to technological innovation, which surprisingly does not impact Indonesia tourism resilience either positively or negatively. Based on the analysis result in Figure 8, the technological innovation category has a value of 0.00, which means that most tourism activities in Indonesia are not integrated with technology. It is unfortunate since technology plays an important role in increasing tourism resilience in Indonesia. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries have used technology to implement an e-tourism strategy, such as a strategy for creating digital content related to tourism, in case tourists can do tourism activities digitally before actually visiting the destination (trying before buying) (Gretzel et al., 2020). This activity will increase the value of tourist sites, attract domestic tourists to visit local destinations and inform the application of health protocol rules and the new normal to tourist areas (Spenceley et al., 2021). It was also created to attract the interest of international tourists towards international travel after the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The low integration of Indonesian tourism with technological innovation will weaken Indonesia tourism resilience during and after the COVID-19 era. It is because technological innovation in the COVID-19 era will affect the decision-making of prospective tourists in choosing tourism destinations after COVID-19 (Gegung, 2021). The more information related to certain tourism destinations spreading online, the higher probability of domestic and international tourists visiting the destinations in Indonesia.

Based on analysis of Indonesia tourism resilience, generally Indonesia tourism site does not have strong enough resilience to deal with the unstable conditions of COVID-19 as well as new tourism trends that have emerged during and after the COVID-19 era. The weak resilience of Indonesian tourism in the COVID-19 era occurs because of the difficulties of applying a new tourism activity based on trends and regulations like sustainability and new normal protocols on site. There is also an imbalance in the use of technology for tourism needs in Indonesia. Thus, it is necessary to formulate a strategy to strengthen Indonesian tourism resilience to be applied during the COVID-19 era, in case Indonesian tourism is better prepared to compete in the domestic and global tourism markets after COVID-19 ends.