Digital Popularity and Tourist Arrivals in Labuan Bajo and Raja Ampat: Evaluating Indonesia’s Super Priority Destination Policy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58258/fq23ee47Abstract
This study examines the relationship between digital popularity and tourist arrivals in Labuan Bajo and Raja Ampat, focusing on differences between Indonesia’s Super Priority Destination (DSP) and non-priority destination policies. Monthly Google Trends data and annual tourist arrival statistics covering 2015–2025 were analyzed using geographic distribution analysis, Pearson correlation, and a multilevel modeling approach to compare tourism growth before and after DSP implementation. The results reveal different relationships between digital popularity and tourist arrivals across the two destinations. Labuan Bajo showed strong positive correlations between tourist arrivals and global (r = 0.8712) and domestic digital popularity (r = 0.8912), whereas Raja Ampat showed moderate correlations of 0.6543 and 0.5210, respectively. Tourist arrivals increased by 425.9% in Labuan Bajo and 75.8% in Raja Ampat over the study period. The multilevel model identified a positive and statistically significant interaction between DSP status and the post-policy period (γ₂₁ = 12.800; p < 0.05), indicating different post-policy growth patterns between the destinations. However, the significant pre-policy growth difference suggests that their tourism trajectories were already unequal before DSP implementation. The findings highlight the importance of integrating digital indicators and official tourism statistics in evaluating destination performance. They also suggest that tourism policies should consider destination readiness, accessibility, and balanced development to strengthen the conversion of digital interest into actual tourist visits.References
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