PHNOM PENH: On 3rd July 2022 Indonesian Embassy in Phnom Penh was screening the film entitled Labuan Hati (The port of heart). The film is aimed to introduce one of the Indonesian tourist destinations, mainly Labuan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara where the location of the film is taken.
Labuan Bajo is one of Indonesia’s five tourism super-priority destinations. Besides promoting and supporting the Indonesian creative economy, the event will also introduce coffee products from East Nusa Tenggara.
The era of the industrial revolution 4.0 has made the creative economy a strategic issue that deserves to be mainstreamed to win global competition, marked by continued innovation and creativity to increase economic added value through the capitalization of creative ideas.
The creative economy can be said as an economic concept in the new economic era that intensifies information and creativity by relying on ideas and stock of knowledge from Human Resources (HR) as the main production factor in its economic activities. The creative economy with its 16 derivative sectors including fashion, art, culinary, product design, online games, films, animation, and others deserves to be a strategic choice to continue to be developed.
Film as one of the creative economic sectors can support the tourism sector, by utilizing tourist destinations as a background of the story. By utilizing film as a tourism promotion medium, film connoisseurs, film industry businessmen, media, and the public will become more familiar with the Indonesian tourist destinations.
Promotion of Indonesian tourism through the movie can also be implemented in Cambodia, considering that Cambodia’s economy continues to grow even though it was rocked by a pandemic, like other countries in the world. The Asian Development Bank estimates that the Cambodian economy will grow again by 3.0% in 2021 after experiencing a 3.1% contraction in 2020. The Cambodian government is seen as having succeeded in implementing policies that can mitigate the negative impact of COVID-19 on businesses, and people’s income and support economic recovery.
In the tourism sector, in 2019 (before the pandemic) the number of tourists from Cambodia was 13,843 people or an increase of 56.59 percent from 2018. This shows Cambodia’s high interest in tourist destinations in Indonesia. In addition, there is also interest in Indonesian films by showing several Indonesian films in Cambodian cinemas and Indonesian series on local Cambodian TV stations.
To increase product penetration and promote the creative economy and Indonesian tourism in Cambodia, the Indonesian Embassy in Phnom Penh will organize the Promotion of Indonesian Tourism Destinations and Creative Economy Cooperation.
This activity is expected to encourage and facilitate business persons, creative industries, and the Indonesian tourism industry to seriously consider Cambodia’s economic opportunities, both bilaterally and regionally, as well as encourage people-to-people contacts. The current introduction of tourist destinations is to focus on 5 (five) super-priority destinations that have been announced by the President of the Republic of Indonesia, one of which is Labuan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara.
The selection of the Labuan Bajo destination is due to the famous marine tourism, where there is also the Komodo Biosphere Reserve Area and Komodo National Park which have been registered as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In addition, it is planned that Labuan Bajo will be the location of the 2023 ASEAN Summit. It is hoped that the introduction of this destination will be a kick-off for 4 (four) other destinations.
Photo by: Indonesian Embassy Phnom Penh
