Ideas for Yogyakarta s Tourism Development Results of a seminar @ CGG Foreign Tourist s Expectations versus Reality Christine Roth
Expectations Topic of the field study were the expectations of foreign tourists coming to Yogyakarta and the reality they meet. Most of the questioned tourists stated, that they did not inform themselves well in advance and therefore did not know what to expect. They just came to Yogyakarta and let themselves be surprised. A lot of people have not even heard the name of the city, before they decided to go there. A realistic marketing concept is missing: Never Ending Asia promises too much, the city does not offer. Going to Yogyakarta the things one experiences are not the typical things that come to one s mind, when thinking of Asia. China, India, Thailand are the typical countries for Asia, not Indonesia, and especially one small city like Yogyakarta cannot provide the same experience as a visit in these countries. By creating realistic expectations through an appropriate marketing concept, it will be possible to fulfill them and guarantee satisfied tourists. A minority of tourists in the field study had certain things in mind, before their first visit in Yogyakarta: they think of it as a cultural melting pot and a much quieter and less touristy place than Bali, an ancient historic Javanese city with famous sites like Borobudur or Prambanan Temple. Satisfaction In general it can be said that the tourists saw their expectations fulfilled. Yet this does not necessarily mean that the people were really satisfied, because many had no expectations before. Positively there is to mention, that the tourism in Yogyakarta is not as developed as in Bali yet and therefore the typical side effects of mass tourism are lacking. The prices have not been adapted to tourist standard yet, meaning that everything is still rather cheap for tourists. The city offers several temples and other historic Javanese sites that are a magnet for tourists and the pavements and streets are in a surprisingly good condition for a developing country. Especially the public transport bus system is to point out, which makes it very easy for tourists to get to the main sites in the small city without having to pay for a taxi (although they are very cheap as well). Another highlights in the city are the several shopping malls, meeting almost Western standards - except for the toilet paper missing in the restrooms, since the traditional way is to use only water and your hands for cleaning. The Malls are a fascinating contrast to the world outside with the traditional Indonesian houses, warungs, street vendors and rickshaws. Several of the questioned tourists experienced Yogyakarta as rather dirty with too much traffic, too crowded, busy and with not enough green. By driving through the city by taxi
they could not really feel much of an atmosphere. A few complained about the low taxi density which caused them to wait in certain spots outside in the heat e.g. for half an hour until one passed. Comparing it to Bali, it was very obvious to them, that Yogyakarta s tourism is not as developed yet, which also showed in contact with the locals. Most of them do not speak proper English yet, even at tourist spots. Worse was seen the behavior of mobile traders. They follow the tourists at certain sites sometimes even into the bus and a simple no is often not sufficient to keep them away. Especially Western tourists consider this behavior as aggressive, annoying and unkind. Some of the asked persons were also disappointed of some of the sites. Whereas Borobudur was satisfying, despite the fact that there was no English information or any signs (except for one with a short description) available, which explained why the temple was build in that way, the Sultan Palace and Tamansari were seen as disappointing for the majority, because they imagined something different when thinking of a Sultans Palace. Having in mind the huge castle of the Sultan in Walt Disneys Aladdin (two tourists actually stated that), the disappointment was of course preset. What they found was in their perception boring, because it was much smaller, wide spread with only one story buildings and partly not well maintained. Importance-Performance-Analysis In the following Importance-Performance-Analysis, the perception of the importance of certain factors is checked against the performance of Yogyakarta in these criteria. Figure: Importance-Performance-Analysis
Factors that tourists considered important and were the performance was also really good were the booking possibilities of a trip to Yogyakarta and the value for money in the restaurants and hotels. That correlates to the positive statement of the tourists, that they experienced the city as rather cheap. Surprisingly, also the accessibility of the city in general was important and well performing, although as mentioned earlier, most of the flights from Europe for example are not direct, but with a stopover. Apparently, this fact does not bother the questioned tourists much. All the factors described before are the selling points of the city. Criteria that were not that important to tourists and Yogyakarta did not perform well at (meaning that these criteria are not of importance for a future planning) were the image of the accommodation, like a certain chain hotel, and the tour offerings. A reason for that could be, that the tourists that were asked, already booked a package including a tour and therefore were not interested in booking one in Yogyakarta or that the tours offered were all the same and a variety was missing, so the individual traveler could not get exactly what he or she wanted. Another possibility is that the questioned people did not know enough about all the tours that are offered and they have probably not been f.e. to Paramita Tours yet, a company that provides very individual tours. Being not very important to customers, but where Yogyakarta performed very good were the following criteria: city transport, variety of restaurants and shopping facilities. Reasons for that could be that the city transport by bus was not of an essential importance to the questioned tourists, because they usually use taxis as they are very cheap and more comfortable. The variety of restaurants and the shopping facilities were not considered to be important, because these are only positive side effect things that make a vacation more enjoyable but they do not make the vacation. Tourists do not come to Yogyakarta to find a good restaurant or shop; the more important factors are the accommodation and the sites. There are two ways of dealing with this kind of criteria ( performing good, but not important ). Either, they are transformed through marketing into strengths, so into important things for the customer ( shopping city best food in whole Indonesia or the prices for taxis are raised, so more people take a change of city transportation into consideration) or the investments made in these criteria should be reduced and rather put into one of the following factors. The things that were really important to the questioned tourists, but Yogyakarta was not performing good in, were the flair, the cultural offers and the hygiene in the hotels and restaurants. Most people would probably consider a city as Paris a city with flair. Important things adding to atmosphere are probably the people (on the street for example), the architecture of the buildings, the feeling of security and others. Yogyakarta sure has atmosphere, imagining Malioboro Street closed for traffic and turned into a pedestrian precinct. Currently, the volume of traffic is so high, that the atmosphere feels rather
stressed, which no tourists wants to be when being on vacation. The cultural offers are one of the main reasons, why tourists come to Yogyakarta. Better maintained sites with more available information (in English!) could improve the perception of the tourists. Finally, the hygiene everywhere in the city should be obviously increased. Tourists consider it important, because they come from countries where hygiene standards are an important issue. Especially in the restrooms at the tourist s spots, it is necessary to improve the conditions, use sitting toilets with toilet paper instead of simple holes in the ground and a proper flushing instead of drawing water with a bowl to flush. All these factors are really important to the tourists and bad experiences lead to a negative mouth to mouth spreading in the tourists home country.