REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Ministry of Tourism has invited the public to participate in an online voting scheme to determine Indonesia's best destination. The vote can be accessed through www.anugerahpesonaindonesia.com.
Deputy for the Marketing Development Division I of the Ministry of Tourism I Gde Pitana stated in Jakarta on Wednesday that the public's choice on the online platform will be presented during the 2018 Anugerah Pesona Indonesia, or the "Wonderful Indonesia Awards."
"This year, new categories that have been modified from several categories last year, include Sport and Adventure as well as Water and Ecotourism," Pitana explained.
Apart from the modified categories, new ones to also be included in this year's awards are Halal tourism and Creative tourism and Souvenirs in bid to showcase that the award is in line with the developments taking place in the tourism sector.
The facility was established to ensure ease of access to the people in casting their votes while at the same time allowing all regional governments to give their inputs on the nominations included in the awards. Pitana highlighted the importance of perfecting the awards in order to increase public interest in the nation's tourism sector.
"This year, a special reward is being given to a destination that has successfully built, promoted, and brought forward the tourism sector in the area. Voters could cast their votes on the ayojalanjalan.com website. Anyone can choose any destination in his/her area, be it the most popular one or the best one according to individual opinion. Everyone is welcomed to participate," he explained.
All categories presented are the result of rigorous selection of tourism data, culinary arts, tourist attractions, and cultural festivals that have been popular in Indonesia.
This year, the Organizing Committee has also made a new breakthrough by launching the application of Anugerah Pesona Indonesia, or Wonderful Indonesia Awards app.
Furthermore, this application was also deliberately created, so that the people can vote for free by using applications that can be downloaded from Google Play Store.
Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the 2018 awards Hiro Kristianto stated that with this application, the public can obtain complete information on the activities of Anugerah Pesona Indonesia, ranging from categories, nominations, and champions of the previous year, to a brief explanation of each nomination.
Especially for the 2018 awards, 18 categories that are being contested include the most popular traditional food, popular traditional beverage, sports tour and the most popular adventure, popular water tours, popular ecotourism, most popular high ground destination, most popular souvenir, most popular cultural attraction, and most popular traditional village.
The other categories comprise the most popular historical site, most popular halal tour, most popular tourism festival, most popular tourism digital promotion, most popular creative tour, most popular shopping spot, most popular unique spot, most popular new destination, and most popular hidden paradise.
"Apart from the application, voting can also be done via paid SMS," he revealed.
Voting has been open since June 1, 2018, and will close on October 31, 2018. The champion Anugerah Pesona Indonesia 2018 will be announced in November 2018.
"The organizing committee also involves various parties in the tourism sector, including tourism associations, tourism journalists, bloggers, observers/tourism players, and also those from the Ministry of Tourism, in the formulating team, which performs the formulation and selection of all proposed nominations," he noted.
Moreover, Minister of Tourism Arief Yahya lauded the role of the private sector that has enabled to decide the award for the best public holiday destination through online media. "The more it involves the public in making the assessment of destinations, the more it will spur destinations to maintain and build their reputation to be the best," Yahya added.
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