Community Participation in Developing City Branding Semarang City, Jawa Tengah, Indonesia

Abstract

The bidding of public participation by BAPPEDA of Semarang city in the development of city brand of Semarang city namely “Variety of Culture” is the objective of this study. Given the fact that people knowledge and understanding on the city branding itself is still apprehensive. The purpose of this research is to define the form of participation and the level of community participation in the development City Branding of Semarang city and its supporting and inhibiting factors. This research utilizes qualitative approach method. To acquire the appropriate and suitable informants, researcher used purposive sampling technique. Informants of this research are BAPPEDA, Department of Culture and Tourism, academics, mass media, tour guide and community. Validity of data is measured by triangulation of source and data acquisition is done by interview, documentation and observation technique. Data analysis carried by data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion. From the study’s outcomes, it can be seen that the form of community participation in the city branding development of Semarang city categorized into pseudo-participation. While the level of community participation categorized tokenism level. The interesting finding is that there has been no evaluation on the city branding development in Semarang. The inhibiting factors were the low level of community participation caused by factors of sex, education, knowledge and occupation. The supporting factors are the related stakeholders and mass media. Recommendation: the requisite to evaluate the development of city branding in order to maximize the goals to be achieved.