Corona Virus Monument Becomes A Tourist Object In Pekanbaru

PEKANBARU - The manager of a tourist attraction in Pekanbaru City, Riau, established the Corona Virus Monument which is now busy with visitors during the Christmas and New Year holidays amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The reason we made this Corona Virus Monument is because the pandemic is one of the histories in our life that we cannot miss. We design it with cute colors so that people no longer need to be afraid of pandemics, but be careful in living a new normal life order , "said Asia Farm Manager, Edy, quoted by Antara, Monday, December 28.

The Corona Virus Monument about four meters high now adorns the entrance to the Asia Farm tourist attraction. The concrete monument is uniquely designed because it is in the form of a viral caricature with white, pink and purple colors. Around it is made of stone steps and a colorful "CORONA" inscription adds to the uniqueness of the monument.

According to him, the monument also aims to attract public attention to travel in the midst of a pandemic by still implementing health protocols such as wearing masks, maintaining distance and washing hands.

The tourism sector business that was affected by the pandemic, continued Edy, made tourism object managers have to be creative to adapt to survive. The number of visits has drastically decreased, and the tourist attraction in Pekanbaru was not operational during the implementation of Large-Scale Social Restrictions (PSBB) in May.

"We were in a mess because there were 70 people working in this place, while during the PSBB we were not allowed to open it," he said.

He said tourism operators must quickly adapt to implementing health protocols, such as mandatory masks for visitors, providing hand washing stations, measuring visitors' body temperatures and applying distance restrictions so as not to cause crowds.

"We are grateful that Asia Farm has an open-air tourism concept, and now our area reaches six hectares and there are 40 rides and 26 farm animals for education," he said.

Even so, he said the number of visits was not as busy as before the pandemic. One of the reasons, because the manager limits only 50 percent of visitors from the available space capacity.

When compared with the Christmas holidays last year, he continued, the number of visits has now decreased by about 50 percent. "If it is too crowded we are also worried that problems will arise because the situation is currently in a pandemic," he said.

A visitor, Ilham Gobel, said he deliberately came to Asia Farm because he wanted to see the Corona Virus Monument. According to him, this monument is very unique and could become a new icon in Pekanbaru City.

"I searched the internet, in Indonesia there is no Corona Virus Monument like this. For me this is very unique," he said.