Post-COVID-19 Pandemic, Bogor City Will Wake Up At The Cap Go Meh 2023 Festival

Bogor Mayor Bima Arya and Governor Ridwan Kamil attended the Cap Go Meh Street Festival celebration in the Pecinan Sukyakenca area, Bogor City, Saturday (8/02/2020).

BOGOR - After two years of celebrating the Chinese New Year and Cap Go Meh online, now the city of Bogor is preparing to welcome it back offline through the Bogor Street Festival.

Bogor Street Festival was again held at the Cap Go Meh 2023 celebration on Jalan Suryakencana, Central Bogor, Bogor City, West Java, February 5, 2023. The COVID-19 pandemic for two years is expected to increase tourism in Bogor City again.

Chairman of BSF CGM 2023, Arifin Himawan explained, various preparations have been made, including curation of participants who will appear in the 2023 BSF CGM people's party activities together with the Bogor City Tourism and Culture Office (Disparbud), stage concepts, health facilities, instructions for places of worship to carry out Ashar and Maghrib prayers as well as a series of events.

He emphasized that the event that had been held since 2000 was not a religious activity, but a people's party together in differences.

In this activity, a joint prayer will be held by religious leaders from each religion.

"We jointly join from various backgrounds, people from various elements will attend, then we also have various appearances of traditional, colossal cultural arts, cultural communities, MSME actors," he said, Wednesday, January 18.

Reflecting on the previous year, said Ahim, the existence of CGM has also increased the level of visits to Bogor City and the occupancy rate of hotels in Bogor City.

Not only that, according to him, small traders and MSMEs also experienced an increase in sales turnover.

The CGM BSF activity, which is planned to be held on February 5, 2023, will begin with a cheap bazaar of household and basic necessities. In addition, social activities are also held at nursing homes and orphanages.

Meanwhile, the Mayor of Bogor, Bima Arya said, since he took office in 2014, the Bogor City Government together with the committee and Forkopimda have continued to develop BSF CGM until he was able to enter the Indonesian Calendar of Event (CoE).

In 2015, President Joko Widodo attended CGM BSF activities and the following years were also attended by several ministers, officials, national figures to the Governor of West Java, Ridwan Kamil who had attended the event.

BSF CGM 2023 is the first major event after the pandemic. For this reason, Bima Arya reminded that there should be anticipation of an increase in visitors.

"When it comes to occupancy, so we shouldn't have to worry about interest, but what we have to anticipate is more about the large number of residents or participants," he said.

He also asked the committee to be even more massive in conducting socialization to the community, so that the public could also anticipate earlier about the existence of CGM BSF activities.