Stakeholder Synergy on Tourism Development in Palembang Municipality Indonesia

As one of the fast-growing sectors in the world, tourism sector now has been widely
used as a development tool for developed and developing countries. In the recent report of
WTTC, travel and tourism sector contributed around 10.09 % of total GDP world in 2019
and expected to increase for 11.5 % in 2008 (WTTC, 2019). Many countries enjoyed big
income from this sector including Indonesia where it showed a significant contribution in
country’s GDP accounted for 5.25 % in 2019 (Indonesia Ministry of Tourism , 2018).
Realizing that tourism sector can bring economic growth, Indonesia government showed a
serious commitment to support tourism development such as improvement of infrastructures,
encouraging attractions, creating a branding awareness and other various measures that can
increase value of tourism in Indonesia. However, the measures conducted by government
were still not enough to enhance the competitiveness of tourism destination in Indonesia. As
a big industry, tourism need to involve all parties, it is because tourism is a complex,
therefore stakeholders need to work together to solve the problem, realize goals and create
new opportunities (Bramwell & Lane, 2000). Another study also showed that a strong and
sustainable partnership or collaboration among the stakeholders is essential in the
development of tourism.

Realizing the essential of collaboration between stakeholder, former Indonesia

tourism minister Arif Yahya encouraged local government to adopt Penta helix model to
support the development of tourism sector. Penta- helix model involves various stakeholder
from Academic, Business, Community, Government and Media. The collaboration between
these stakeholders was seen as effective way to develop tourism sector. One of local
government that has adopted this penta-helix model is Palembang municipality. It was seen
from its strategic planning that emphasize the involvement of Penta helix in its tourism
sector. Palembang municipality is local government located in South Sumatera province that
has been decided as one of eighty-eight strategic national tourism area (KSPN) according to
government regulation number 50-year 2011 in masterplan of national tourism. Although it
has been decided as one of KSPN in Indonesia, Palembang municipality is still struggling to
develop its tourism sector. The numbers of visitors were still fluctuated and did not show
significant increment over the years. The mid term target in 2012-2017 only reach 95 %.
moreover, even after hosted an international sport even in 2018, it did not help boost the
visitors in this city.
 As some studies has shown that stakeholder collaboration is recognized to succeed
tourism management, then it is important to conduct study about the collaboration in the
pentahelix stakeholder in Palembang to get to know the real condition of stakeholder synergy
to support development of tourism in Palembang. Therefore, the main research question of
this study is How is the synergy between pentahelix stakeholder in developing tourism in
Palembang Municipality?. This research has three objectives:

1. Identified pentahelix stakeholder and assessing their roles in developing tourism

palembang municipality
2. Investigate the synergy formed between stakeholder
3. Identified Supporting and challenging factors in synergy between stakeholder.