Sandiaga Uno Calls Marketing Through The Metaverse A Necessity

Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Uno. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Uno stated that marketing through the metaverse is a necessity as digitalization accelerates with enormous potential.

According to him, Bloomberg projects that the metaverse will be the future of the internet with an estimated value of USD 800 billion by 2024, and by 2026 there will be 25 percent of the world's population spending about an hour a day in the metaverse.

"That means they will work, shop, access education, do health care, and any activities including tourism and the creative economy in the metaverse. It's in the meta space, which of course we have to take breakthrough steps from four years before that," said Sandiaga through official statement, quoted from Antara, Thursday, August 18.

The government is said to have to present and facilitate all parties so that they can ensure the metaverse increases welfare.

As directed by President Joko Widodo, that digital transformation, including metaverse, must encourage Indonesia's digital sovereignty and independence.

“In this transformation, we must not become guests in our own land. How can we present creative content and the power of our digitalization based on Pancasila and diversity, of course, rooted in local wisdom that we have," he said.

Therefore, the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy (Kemenparekraf) presents the "WonderVerse Indonesia" platform in an effort to promote Indonesia's tourism and creative economy (parekraf) interactively digitally.

The development of the "WonderVerse Indonesia" meta world in collaboration with PT. Magnus Digital Indonesia was marked by the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Acting Deputy for Marketing of the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, Ni Wayan Giri Adnyani, and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Magnus Digital Indonesia Hendra Liman.

He expects the “WonderVerse Indonesia” platform to be a game changer in the promotion of Indonesia's creative economy in the future.

"This is the first step of so many achievements that we must achieve, and this also coincides with the momentum of our 77th independence to recover faster and rise stronger. I hope that industry players and MSMEs must be ready to fill their creative economy with products and tourist destinations are marketed virtually," he said.

The CEO of Magnus Digital Indonesia, Hendra Liman explained that WonderVerse Indonesia is divided into four parts or what is called "land", which is a representation of Indonesia as an archipelagic country.

The first is the “Lobby”, which is a section for visitors to interact with endemic animals, a gallery of paintings from Indonesian artists, as well as a wide screen provided. Next up is “WonderFUN Land” which presents various Indonesian games as well as entertainment such as puppet shows and dances.

Then "WonderGoods Land", where visitors can transact typical Indonesian goods marketed by tourism industry players.

The last part is “WonderREAL Land” where visitors can directly buy flight tickets, hotels, and accommodation during the holidays to visit Indonesia according to the desired destination.

"We hope that MetaVerse Indonesia can be a place to introduce the beauty of Indonesian culture to the world's eyes. WonderVerse Indonesia can provide great benefits for Indonesia from the digital side, from the travel side, and especially from the creative economy side," said Hendra Liman.

Currently, Hendra said, MetaVerse Indonesia is still in the refinement stage and will begin to be accessible in the fourth quarter of 2022.