PASAR WADAI RAMADHAN (CAKE FAIR)
BANJARMASIN: FADING
LOCAL FOOD FESTIVAL
Yudianto Rchwono1, Bambang Suharto2, Santi Isnaini3
Universitas Airlangga, Jawa Timur, Indonesia
yudianto.rachwono-2021@pasca.unair.ac.id1, bambang.suharto@vokasi.unair.ac.id2, santi.isnaini@fisip.unair.ac.id3
Abstract
This research is tended to explore the cause of declining interest in the annual food
festival in Banjarmasin, Pasar Wadai Ramadhan (Ramadhan Cake Fair). This festival
has been running for 38 years and only during the month of Ramadhan. It
originally sells traditional delicacies and as time goes by some local
spectacles are shown during the festival to attract more visitors. The aim of
this research is to provide a contribution to the image strengthening of Banjaresse culture as
well as economic sustainability for the people in South Kalimantan. SWOT analysis was used to
conduct obtain the result of this research. The use of SWOT analysis to conduct this research is to bring out the result by conducting interviews,
observation, and documentation. Based on the steps done, the result showed the
cause of a lesser audience of this festival is due to the changes of
occurring place for the event. To keep
this annual festival sustainable, support from local authorities and locals is
crucial in implementing a sustainable festival management strategy.
Keywords: Ramadhan Cake Fair, Sustainable festival, SWOT analysis, Sustainable
festival management strategy.
Introduction
As a vast archipelago
country, Indonesia owns hundreds of ethnicities. Each of these ethnicities has
its delicacies commonly known as traditional food. To preserve the existence of
these delicacies some provinces organize culinary festivals such as Bali Interfood Festival (Bali), Festival Kampoeng
Tempo Doelo (Jakarta), Festival Sate dan Soto
Nusantara (West Sumatra), and Festival Kuliner Teluk Jailolo (North Maluku) (Angelin, 2020). The way to preserve local food through
festivals is a form of cultural appreciation since food is an inseparable
element of a culture (Mak,
Lumbers, Eves, & Chang, 2013).
By creating a
gastronomy event, a city provides a unique experience to its people and also
visitors. This gastronomy event enables them to experience authentic customs
and culture with food (Chang,
Kivela, & Mak, 2011). Therefore, Food tourism may be interpreted as attending food
festivals, visiting restaurants and specific locations for testing the food,
and/or experiencing the specialized regional produced food (Boyne, Hall, &
Williams, 2003).
As the
interest in savoring local food when traveling is growing from time to time;
food now is seen as an important element (Özdemir & Seyitoğlu, 2017). The experience known as the “travel gastronomical experience”
is considered the main experience (Chang et al., 2011) which drives tourism destinations to promote the available
facilities and the edible aspect within to attract more visitors to come.
Both
combinations of tourism and gastronomy bring socioeconomic impacts to an area. By
collaborating these two elements; an area could have established integration in
generating income through gastronomy tourism (Bessičre, 2013). The income generated from this tourism sector is clear
evidence of local economic development involving several professional sectors
such as manufacturers/suppliers, chefs, markets, etc (Gheorghe, Tudorache, & Nistoreanu, 2014).
Following the
idea of socioeconomic development, (Gheorghe et al., 2014)) stated that gastronomy plays an important part in tourist
attraction. Gastronomy has become one of the main attractions for tourism since
it defines the competitiveness of a destination and attracts tourists whose
motive to travel is to devour local delicacies. Therefore, tourist destinations
in recent days augmented the sector of gastronomy to be used as one of the
magnets in grabbing tourists; take Taiwan for example (Lin & Chen, 2014).
Although food
brings an impact on tourism, especially in the form of festivals; studies in
this field are still scarce (Mak, Lumbers, & Eves,
2012). The scarcity of studies in this field offers a
chance to conduct a descriptive study on how food festivals could be
sustainable. Therefore, using Pasar Wadai Ramadhan as an example, this study
aims to discover the sustainability of this food festival using a SWOT
analysis. By using SWOT analysis theory based on several factors such as
Destination Image, Branding, and Image Transfer as well as events in
destination branding (food festivals in particular); the researcher aims to
discover answers for each component in SWOT analysis in answering the research
question: What is SWOT analysis for Pasar Wadai Ramadhan to maintain and
enhance its sustainability? This research question is the guidance based on a
study conducted in Banjarmasin, the capital of South Kalimantan which organizes
an annual event only in the month of Ramadhan which has been running for 38
years.
The
image of a destination has been recognized as one's mental representation of
feeling, knowledge, and global impressions of a destination (Baloglu & McCleary, 1999). Marketers should select the consistency of unique combinations in a
brand element in establishing the destination's identity (Boo,
Busser, & Baloglu, 2009) The importance of unique characteristics
of a destination also has been highlighted by (Buhalis,
2000). He stated that every destination usually
attracts a specific type of tourist. Therefore, the effectiveness of branding
destination requires unique selling propositions which it is not easily copied.
The intense competition among destinations in becoming the most visited place
by tourists has made the respective authorities impose the authenticity of the
place to attract the target tourists. Specifically, studies nowadays such as (Lai, Khoo-Lattimore, & Wang, 2019).
The core of destination branding is brand image formation. This is how
tourists portray a destination based on its qualities and association (Qu, Kim,
& Im, 2011) From the point of view of destination
marketing, customer-based brand equity has been incorporated into numerous
studies. The success of a destination's branding is assessed through the image
and loyalty of the tourists toward the destination (Tsai &
Wang, 2017). One recent interesting topic in
marketing research is brand image transfer. It is common for companies to
emphasize strategically their products or services by highlighting their most
valuable assets to develop their brand names easily (Keller,
Parameswaran, & Jacob, 2011). The approach of umbrella branding where
a brand adopts a bigger and more successful name as its "parent" for
its products is commonly used to make customers perceive the quality of the
products or services as the same as "branded house" (Knox,
2004). By using the umbrella branding approach,
a unit may also gain success for its product by extending the positive
association of the product.
Studies on
image transfer provide a solid theoretical base for destination marketers in
applying brand concepts at the destination level. The adoption of the values of
a corporation in featured products shows a sense of credibility and quality,
which depicts its core values and builds up a more desirable image of the
corporate. In tourism, the effect of spillover allows the image transfer
possible from a product to a destination. Similarly, to the corporate image
stated by (Balmer & Gray, 2003); a destination image covers the core values of the place and
therefore allows it to take advantage of the well-established brand equity and
knowledge for extending the products and services. Subsequently, the
organizations of destination marketing are actively and increasingly organizing
special events to attract potential tourists and strengthen a favorable image (Getz, 2008).
When a destination is paired
with an event to be marketed, a unique experience may be experienced by tourists.
The unique experience generated by food events within a destination signifies
effective and successful destination marketing; it depicts the successful relationship
between destinations, products, and consumers (Qu et al.,
2011). For instance, participation in mentioned
event permits tourists to have a special experience and more understanding of
local’s authenticity; which alters their perception of destination images on
economic, sociocultural, and environmental aspects (Deng &
Li, 2014).
Academic studies conducted
in the related field seldom explore the role of events in creating a unique identity
or brand. These studies cover the use of special events as places of branding;
for instance, a study conducted in 2016 by Peter on Dubai as the shopping paradise.
In his study, Dubai was depicted as a shopping paradise through a shopping
festival (Peter
& Anandkumar, 2016). As there are numerous values
depicted to tourists from various events; the existing study as mentioned
earlier, mainly discussed the broad impacts of events on many destinations’ images
(cultural environment and economic benefits). However, it failed to investigate
further what image or identity will be constructed if different special events
were held (Hallmann,
Zehrer, & Müller, 2015) Since
events influence branding, the facets of a destination are also being
influenced. (AL-HAFIZ & Firmansyah, 2019) stated that the tourism industry has several facets namely:
culinary, sport, and medical; but there is a lack of understanding of how
special events can depict the unique facets of an image from a destination (AL-HAFIZ & Firmansyah, 2019) Thus, the urgency to examine further destination branding
through events is emerging.
As food has long become
one of the main magnets in tourism destinations and serves as an added value to
its branding; many regions are now benefitting from the immense opportunities of
it for the advancement of destination marketing. For example, the Korean
government has pledged to promote the food of this country profoundly; resulting
in the well-known status of food across nations along with the history and
culture of Korea (Lin & Chen, 2014). Another example would be Hong Kong which is famous for its
food. Depicted as a “gourmet paradise”, the destination marketing organizations
in this country tend to promote exotic flavor combinations between west and
east incorporated into its cuisine (Horng & Tsai, 2010). Similar to the two mentioned examples,
Singapore has also proposed the same notion by proposing the “The Food Capital
of Asia” slogan for this Merlion country. This slogan is intended to foster
culinary development with a broad variety of culinary delights (Henderson,
2004)
Resources of
culinary tourism consist of aspects that are mainly categorized into four:
activities, events, facilities, and organizations (Horng & Tsai, 2012) Among these categories, events for food (food festivals)
have gained fame tremendously in recent years (Folgado-Fernández, Hernández-Mogollón, & Duarte, 2017). Food festivals do not only offer consumables but also
promotions for their visitors externally; they also portray lifestyle and
identity (Lau & Li, 2019). It supports the notion asserted by nowadays researchers on
the immense potential for developing tourism destinations through food events (Park, Reisinger, & Kang, 2008). Which provide tourists to indulge themselves in the taste
of indigenous flavors, take part in cultural activities, experience lifestyle
authenticity, and learn the traditions of one destination (Wan & Chan, 2013) Further, the mentioned activities are translated into cultural
appreciation which connects tourists to a destination through emotional
connection (Hall & Sharples, 2008). Therefore, food festivals offer an authentic theme to a
tourist destination’s image and development. It can also serve as a
motivational factor for culinary tourism as well as sustainable tourism
generally (Smith, Costello, & Muenchen, 2010).
By the context of the
research in this paper, Pasar Wadai Ramadhan, which serves as an area selling
the traditional food of Banjaresse, has made culinary
activities one of the tourist attractions in Banjarmasin. The local government which
serves as the sole destination marketing organization in this city is eager to
promote the city by promoting its cross-cultural exchange. In particular, the
local government has been hosting this annual event since 1985. The local
government does not only provide the visitors with selections of traditional
food sold; but also, entertainment such as folk dances and traditional music
(Zainuddin. H, 2021)
Local governments need to
investigate the effectiveness of food festivals in branding culinary
destinations. It has been shown by several previous studies on the subject
adopt the common practice of focusing on communication objectives over economic
objectives, for it is hard to discover sales volume based on different influences
(Kusumoto,
2002). At this
point, the effectiveness of the advertisement is well-recognized as customers’
cognitive, affective, and connotative level response; such as customers’ recall
and recognition of a brand, image perception, repurchase intentions, and
positive recommendations (Wan & Chan, 2013). Accordingly, in the context of the study, the
effectiveness of a campaign as a tool of promotion dominantly comes out with
destination image and loyalty affected by this image as the results (Qu et al., 2011) The SWOT analysis provides the theoretical base to
understand how the SWOT analysis components (strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats) of a festival can be used as a reference to build
sustainable festivals based on the involvement of destination image, branding,
and image transfer; Events in destination branding, and The role of food’s
festival in culinary destination branding.
Metod
The use of SWOT analysis
as the basis of this study is referred to as phenomenological which is described
as the reflective study of lived experience. The main attribute of phenomenological
tradition is that this study is designed to describe the immediate experience
of the subject rather than theorizing or conceptualizing it (Lisa,
2008). Its usage
fits best with the descriptive model of the qualitative method since the outcome
describes objectively the result of an investigation of an event (Elgar, 2007).
The sample
and data collection for this study is taken by using purposive sampling and interview.
Purposive sampling was used to target the visitors of the festival to acquire
their opinions towards the festival; while the interview to draw it was done in
the most flexible way to draw the richness of experience from the interviewees (Elgar, 2007). The semi-structured
interview was conducted by inserting casual talks while asking the key
questions to interviewees. It was done on the spot where this event took place
and lasted for 15-20 minutes each. The initial discussions concerned the
festival in general but then narrowed down to the personal point of view that
can be used as improvements of the festival.
The analysis to conclude the result of this study was done by reading
all the interview results to draw interpretative and common meanings. By doing
so, the interpretations from the general narratives, as well as specific
quotations, were met in agreement. It was then broken down and grouped into
specific components of SWOT analysis to see each of the respective components to
be put as the result later in the result and discussion section.
Result and Discussion
Based
on the data analysis acquired, the result and discussion of this study are depicted
in two parts: Ramadhan Cake Fair is an annual event that only occurs during Ramadhan.
As an annual event, this event was started in 1985 and inaugurated by the
appointed mayor at that time Mr. Kamarudin. The first
place where this festival took place was on Jl. R.E Martadinata.
Since then, this festival had been successfully grabbing the attention of the
locals. Although originally it was only clusters of traditional food vendors,
as time passed by it got bigger over time causing local authorities to relocate
it into a bigger place. The new place was located in the Menara siring area at
the bank of Martapura river from then until the
recent year. The relocation itself came with some improvements; one of them was
the spectacles of traditional music and dances performed by local performers.
This collaboration then attracted more visitors not only from the neighboring
city but also from other countries.
The
improvement in showing traditional dances and music during the festival was
intended to establish a distinct festival that may be alike in other places. It
is confirming the notion proposed by (Boo et
al., 2009) that the efforts of local
authorities as destination marketers were intended to build a unique
destination’s identity. This notion was confirmed by one of the interviewees
whose home is in a neighboring city stating that he often visits Banjarmasin
during Ramadhan only to experience the uniqueness of the festivals by having
traditional food and watching spectacles while visiting his relatives.
The traditional foods sold during the festival varied from snacks to
entrées. The local authorities claimed this festival aimed to ensure the existence
of these traditional foods as part of the unique identity owned by Banjarmasin
for it is one of the largest cities where Banjarese
resides. The target from local authorities as destination marketing organizations
supported the idea of Dimitrios which highlighted the uniqueness of one place
may set one tourism destination apart from others (Buhalis,
2000).
Moreover, the decision to move the venue of this festival to the bank of
Martapura river portrayed the effort of local
authorities to strengthen the image of Banjarmasin as the city of thousand
rivers. The umbrella branding technique used through the placement of the venue
for this event intensifies the image as a city with easy access to fresh water,
Banjarmasin is well-known for its freshwater seafood that can be found easily
in the entrées sold within the festivals.
This festival accommodated hundreds of traditional food vendors
consisting of traditional snacks, cakes, and entrée. These vendors had to
register their stalls with local authorities.
Although this festival had minor drawbacks during the pandemic of
COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021. The enthusiasm of visitors never extremely
diminished. Visitors from local, neighboring cities, and even foreigners still
find this festival interesting to see since they will not merely experience the
authenticity of Banjarese food but also traditional
spectacles.
Based
on the analysis conducted from the result of the interview with the visitors of
this festival, there are internal and external factors found as considerations
in determining the SWOT analysis components for this study: The internal factors
to be used as considerations in maintaining the sustainability of this event
are the authenticity of the content of the festivals. The authentic content for
this festival is its strength since it offers a distinct experience for the
visitors where they could indulge themselves with the traditional food of Banjarese. Interestingly, authenticity also served as a
weakness. The external factors that took into account as considerations in
sustaining this event are the venue where the festival took place and external
cultural exposure. The venue for the festival is the opportunity factor that
should be maximized by the organizer. Choosing the strategic and representable
venue as an effort to strengthen the image of Banjarmasin as the city of
thousand rivers and provide an accessible way for visitors are great
opportunities to be used maximally. On the other hand, external cultural
exposure, modernization, and advanced technology were considered threats to the
sustainability of this festival.
Both
of internal and external factors mentioned above were further classified into
more detailed components in the SWOT analysis as follows: The authenticity
brought by the organizer (the local authorities) built a strong image of Banjaresse cultural representation. Visitors would have
been associated automatically with the food and traditional spectacles once
they heard about the name of this festival. The repeated spectacles in
representing the authenticity apart from the food sold were a point to ponder
as a weakness for this festival. Visitors, especially locals got bored with the
repetition of the shows shown during the festival. The chosen venue for
organizing this festival was located in the center of the city. It provided the
visitors with easy access to go to the festival. This venue was also
representable in representing the image of Banjarmasin as the city of thousand rivers.
The first threat was external cultural exposure brought by the food sold at
this festival. It competed head-to-head with traditional food since it is sold
at the same venue. Modernization was the second threat that caused some authentic
ornaments omitted from the festival causing a less authentic image. Last but
not least the ease offered by technology that allows people to order food
without leaving home made some of the visitors go only once a month to this
festival.
Using
the detailed SWOT analysis components above, strategies could be generated to
maintain the sustainability of the Ramadhan Cake Fair. Four pairs of recommended
strategies could be created by the components above. The first pair is S-O
(Strength and Opportunity), the second pair is W-O (Weakness and Opportunity),
the third pair is S-T (Strength and Threat) and the last pair is W-T (Weakness
and Threat). The details of each recommended strategy are as follows:
|
Strength
and Opportunity |
Weakness
and Opportunity |
Strength
and Threat |
Weakness and Threat |
|
1) Promoting the event effectively |
1) Collaborating with local art communities to
provide varieties of spectacles |
1) Providing early exposure to younger generations
through education |
1) Establishing relationships with local art
communities and providing them with their needs so that in return they will
come up with entertaining content |
Tabel
1. Recommended Strategy Based on SWOT
Source: Modified by researcher
Based
on the suggested strategies above, the chances of sustainability of this
festival were visible based on the strength and opportunity it owned. However,
the weakness and threat of this festival were also detectable making it
vulnerable. Both of these weaknesses and threats should be overcome to keep the
sustainability of this festival.
Conclusion
As part of tourist attractions for years, Ramadhan Cake Fair
represents the immense potential of culinary tourism that can be managed in the
long run. When it involves basic elements in society such as local
organizations, businesses, governments, and communities when organizing a
festival; a festival will gain sustainability since they share the common sense
of belonging. In the case of this study, the local government is the one that
mainly organizes the festival; leaving the rest of the basic elements in
society less active causing repeating spectacles shown during the festival. The
use of recommended strategies in this study is hoped to enhance the
sustainability of the festival by mitigating the threats and overcoming the
weakness found.
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