Urban Tourism Development Through Culture Commodification in Bandung City

The background of the research was that cultural tourism activities in Bandung City were less attractive and that traditional Sundanese arts, as one of the Sundanese cultural elements, were threatened. With the increase in the needs of tourism sector, particularly cultural tourism, and the need of preserving traditional Sundanese arts, commodification becomes one of the measures of preserving traditional Sundanese arts by developing cultural tourism in Bandung City. The process makes traditional Sundanese arts as a commodity to be sold to tourists. Commodification, preservation, and development theories of tourism objects were applied in the current research to analyze each of the problems formulation arisen. McKercher and du Cros’ concept (2002) has become a common literary account of the link between commodification of culture and tourism. Through commodification, a cultural asset becomes a tourism product by altering the ‘abstract’ experience into ‘concrete’ experience which a tourist can consume. However, some scholars believe that there are certain principle of alterations so that commodification can turn a culture into tourism asset while also indirectly becomes a tool in preserving, maintaining and developing the cultural identity of the nation. In the current research, the writer applied a qualitative method, and the data collection technique used was by stages of observation, interview, library study, documentary study, and then analyzed by a descriptive-qualitative method. The commodification in traditional Sundanese arts occurred in dancers, choreographers, motions and formation patterns, literature lyrics, accompanying instruments, dancing dresses, make-up, properties, staging time, staging duration, and staging location in attempt to fulfill consumers (markets)’ appetites (satisfactions). With the development of the cultural tourism, there was indirectly a meaning of the traditional art preservation itself within it, because each commodification process inherits and keeps the skills in traditional Sundanese arts to the next generation. Moreover, by keeping the Sundanese culture the traditional art entertainments were often performed, though with some modification and adjustment to contemporary setting but the honorable values contained in the traditional arts were consistently kept.