The Role of Digital Marketing in Domestic Tourism Sector: Comparison Study Between Indonesia and South Korea

Abstract

Tourism industry is one sector that has a major contribution to a country's economy. Based on data from the World Travel and Tourism Council (2022), tourism industry contributed 10.4% of Global GDP and provided one of four jobs worldwide in 2019. Indonesia and South Korea is two countries that are famous for tourism. The number of international tourists is keep uprising both in Indonesia and South Korea. There is an increase as 218% for Indonesia and 229% for South Korea (Source: The World Bank 2022a, comparison from 2000 to 2019). Although the increase in both countries looks very promising, unfortunately in 2020 the number of international visitors decreased drastically due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, the income of the tourism sector in 2020 were dominated by domestic tourists. This study was conducted as a collaboration of Bogor Agricultural University and Jeonbuk National University to find out and compare how South Korea and Indonesia carry out digital marketing strategies to attract domestic tourists, specifically in Bali and Jeju Province. The research method used is SEM PLS with a sample of domestic tourist with age range 15-40 years old and have done a tourism trip to Jeju or Bali. The result of this study found that in South Korea results of information search from search engine optimizer and social media have a direct impact on visit decision however in Indonesia search engine optimizer and social media have a direct and indirect impact through satisfaction of information.