ASIAN GAMES 2018 AS A SPORT TOURISM ELEMENT IN THE ITINERARY OF INBOUND TOUR

摘要

The appointment of Indonesia as the event organizer of Asian Games 2018 could be seen as a challenge and at the same time is an opportunity to show the world that Indonesia is capable in hosting this such big event. This international sport event like Asian Games could be classified as world sport tourism, especially in Asia. Various kind of sports that matched or competed during the period of Asian Games could be offered as a tourism attraction. From the perspective of Tourism Actors, this event is also an opportunity to add an alternative product in tour packages, especially in Sport Tourism for inbound tourists. This opportunity is welcomed and highly responded by tour operators in Bandung by creating some variant of tour packages for inbound tourists, consisted of visiting places with Indonesia culture, guiding to watch the matches in Asian Games, visiting local tourism destinations, local gastronomy, and center of local tokens. These various activities bonded in an inbound tour package thus will increase the product innovation on tour package. Not only provide revenue for the travel company, but also revenue for the two cities that chosen as venues for Asian Games event, Jakarta and Palembang. This research aims to analyze the packaging of Asian Games as tourism attraction for inbound tour packages, using Itinerary and Design Analysis Method with qualitative approach. Itinerary and Design Analysis applied on some tour and travel companies in Bandung, West Java, especially companies in ASITA. Whilst data collection was conducted by interview techniques, literature studies, and questionnaire technique. This research conducted by the using of qualitative approach, that analyze how is the attractiveness of a tour package that consisted of an Asian Games match in it's itinerary, in order to grab the tourists' desires. In analyzing on the tourism package, the authors break it down base on package compositions and the variety in packaging; those are theme, itinerary, and price. In an effort to sharpen the corridor of the study, researchers formulate the problems as follows: (1) How is the analysis on the contribution of Asian Games event as a tourism attraction? (2) How is the formulation of packaging the Asian Games as sport tourism attractions in inbound tour packages? The outcome of this research found that the Asian Games event has a good contribution as a sport tourism attraction, in arranging a tour package. This research also found that the tour and travel companies applied a formula of "mix n match" itinerary that combines sport tourism with available national attractions spots.