Tanjung Lesung Banten's tourism destination is considered as a foremost tourism location in Banten Province. Nevertheless, the number of tourist visits in this area has decreased since the tsunami disaster struck in 2018 and the earthquake in 2019. Not only the natural disaster, currently, but the people around the Tanjung Lesung SEZ are also undergoing an unlucky event, affected by the Covid-19 pandemic which has increasingly desolated the people's economy. The policy of work from home lessens the tourist's visit to Tanjung Lesung. Although currently entering New Normal with due observance of health protocols, there are still many tourists who are hesitant to come for a tour.
The UGM SCS=CEL Team encourages tourism development through a program to increase the skills and knowledge of the community around Tanjung Lesung through online media. "We have worked on various work programs, especially for tourism operations, and we convey them to the public through online media. Fortunately, the local community is very enthusiastic about our program, even though the signal sometimes comes erratically," said Rahmawati Istianing Rahayu, a member of the UGM Online SCS-CEL team in Tanjungjaya Village, Panimbang, Pandeglang, Banten on Friday (21/8).
The student from the UGM Faculty of Agriculture explained that one of the interdisciplinary programs they ran is about tourism promotion and local product development. This program involves three clusters in the UGM SCS-CEL team, agro and social clusters in charge of product branding and designing digital marketing of IKM products. Meanwhile, the scientific cluster is in charge of mapping maps and building tourist websites. "The website we created contains various tourism categories, tour packages, lodging information, transportation maps, health facilities maps, accommodation maps, and local products for the community in the Tanjung Lesung SEZ," said Rahayu as she mentioning www.bufferzonetanjunglesung.com as the link address of their website.
According to her, this website proposes to help tourists who want to find out more information about Tanjung Lesung tourism and superior products owned by residents. "We created this website to promote tourism in the Tanjung Lesung SEZ in the hope that the economy of the people who depend on the tourism sector and small industry will soon recover," she explained.
Although the online SCS-CEL activities have finished, Rahayu emphasized that the Tourism Awareness Group (Pokdarwis) of Tanjungjaya Village and Citeureup Village are the parties that will hold further the management of the website. Beforehand, students had conducted online training related to product branding, website branding, and website operation training.
Author: Gusti Grehenson
Translator: Natasa A