City Branding Part 1

The city around the world is competing to make the most allure branding. Even famous city like Paris and New York have to promote their branding intensively because of the competitiveness in the tourism sector. Some scholar related the influence of branding, promotion with the significant number of tourist arrival. Many municipalities in Indonesia also try to promote their city by making the appealing branding such as Enjoy Jakarta, Jogja Istimewa, Beautiful Malang, Malang: The Heart of East Java, Majestic Banyuwangi, Sparkling Surabaya, Shining Batu, etc.

In 2015 Indonesia Ministry of National Development make a call for paper. The title of the call for paper is Bappenas International Conference on Best Development and Practices. There are five themes for this competition: Food Security, Energy Security, Maritime, Industry, and Tourism. The themes were related with Nawacita. Nawacita are nine top priorities agenda from Joko Widodo and Yusuf Kalla.  I had chosen the tourism theme for my article. My paper entitles “Best Practices Local Branding Kota Wisata Batu Sebagai Upaya Meningkatkan Perekonomian Kota Batu”. After submitting my article, a few months later the committee send me an email saying that my paper got selected for the oral presentation. From around 200 papers for this theme, they only selected the top five. I was so happy. In short story, I win the competition for tourism. This is the decree from the judge.

I always like something related to tourism for the obvious reason because I love traveling. Since then I began to explore the theme of tourism especially local branding. Me and my friend Ratnaningsih Damayanti and Irma Fitriana Ulfah from Governmental Science Department Faculty of Social and Political Science University of Brawijaya, we had conducted some research about the local branding. In 2016 our research entitles “City Branding Kabupaten/Kota di Jawa Timur”. The research conducted in 3 regencies Banyuwangi, Surabaya and Batu municipality. In 2017 We continue our research to “Analisis Perumusan City Branding Kabupaten/Kota di Jawa Timur” the research still conducted in East Java Province but to other regencies which are Malang City, Malang Municipality and Tulungagung Municipality

Furthermore, from areas we had analyzed, we found there are four models in formulating the city branding:

1. City branding formulated from the bottom; that is to say, public involvement, in this case, is high. The public who has the main role in city branding formulation. The sense of belonging for this type of formulation also high, but the weakness in this type the local government does not immediately respond to make it a policy. The city with this type of branding formulation is Surabaya municipality
2. City branding formulated from the top; in other words, the local government has the initiative to make the branding, usually the use a professional consultant to prepare it. The good things about this type are local government funded the research and after the select the most prominent branding they usually enacted it immediately. But usually, it takes a long time to internalize in public, in some cases public a bit resistant to the branding because it doesn’t reflect the nor the city. The city with this kind of city branding are: Malang regency, Malang Municipality, Tulungagung regency, Batu regency, Banyuwangi regency
3. The third model is a combination between the bottom and up. This is a bit unpopular because it can cover the weaknesses of the two models. In this formulation, at the first stage, they use the professional consultant to make some branding alternative, they also open the competition for the public if the public has some good ideas about the branding. In the end, the government makes a public vote for the branding. We found one region for this type it’s Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta. The special things about Yogyakarta are they also involved many stakeholders like artist and tourism actor like the representative of hotels, restaurant, etc.
4. The last model is formulated by the central government. As we know Indonesia tourism branding is Wonderful Indonesia. The branding initiated by The Ministry of Tourism. There is some local branding integrated with wonderful Indonesia. The one got selected with the branding will be promoted as the top tourism destination in Indonesia. And will be promoted in the ministry official website and the advertisement around the world. To be part of the central government branding the local government can propose it to the Ministry of tourism or the Ministry of Tourism can offer some local government to join but they will have to use the branding made by the central government. The city apply this model is Medan municipality

souce: Ministry of Tourism Republic of Indonesia

This formulation for local branding process models will continue to develop along with the rapid growth in branding and tourism sector. And we will continue our work in local branding.