"Tour de Djokdja" for Unique Information

"Tour de Djokdja" for Unique Information
~ Kompas (13 December 2006) ~

snapshot: Tour de Djokdja for Unique Information YOGYAKARTA, KOMPAS - Minimum information on tourism results in low frequency of tourists visit. YogYES.COM site presenting tourism information tries new breakthrough by launching Tour de Djokdja, a tourism rubric in a unique packaging.

Agus Supriadi, the Project Leader of YogYES.COM, during the launching of the rubric in Hotel Jayakarta, Tuesday (12/12), explained, Tour de Djokdja was pioneered in last August.

"By far, we have published 15 editions. In each edition, we try to present a unique theme that is rarely published, or we present other point of view of a tourist object," said Agus.

In the 12^th edition of Tour de Djokdja, for example, the site visitors were invited to wander through natural beaches in Gunung Kidul such as Ngobaran Beach with its mosque directing southwards. This is unique since usually the door of a mosque ia at the east side.

"Or the 15^th edition that reported the public spaces and coffee shops where young people hang around. The 16^th edition will report the Chinese areas. "We only provide the service in two languages, namely English and Indonesian. Nonetheless, we plan to provide the same information in Dutch language," said Agus.

Visitors Increase

Address list of starred hotels is available in this website to serve as alternative to spend the night both for domestic and foreign tourists. In addition to hotels, the advertisers are, among others, travel agents and handicraft bussinesses.

Realizing the impossibility of distributing information alone, YogYES.COM cooperates with bloggers, on-line communities that care about tourism by providing various information. By far, there are at least 150 bloggers from all parts of Indonesia giving support.

Even though it is difficult to judge the correlation between YogYES.COM and the bloggers with regards to tourism improvement in Yogya, statistic shows that visitors of this site increase. In three months time, the visitors increase from around 1,700 people a day to 2,700 people.

Similar increase is also shown by the number of contacts and hotel reservation through YogYES.COM. This site receives no commission for any purchase done. "Around two percents of this site visitors are buyers who end up with transaction," Agus explained.

Agus Zakaria, Sales and Marketing Manager of Hotel Jayakarta, welcomes the presence of this rubric enthusiastically. He suggested that unique, interesting presentation of tourism information just like the one done by Tour de Djokdja will give new nuance. (PRA)

Source: Kompas