Market Potential of Marine Heritage Trails in Indonesia: Insights from Wakatobi, Sulawesi

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-394-8_4How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Marine Heritage; Tourism; Tourist Preference; Market Analysis

Abstract

Since the Dutch colonial era until the early 20th century, Sulawesi served as a significant international trade route, with Wakatobi playing a pivotal role as a trade hub. This historical significance is evidenced by archaeological discoveries across various locations, showcasing maritime heritage through artifacts such as cannons, local fortifications, and coastal communities with blacksmithing traditions. However, despite Wakatobi’s current recognition as a Marine Tourism Area, the high historical value of these sites remains underutilized for local community welfare. This study aims to assess the market potential of maritime heritage as a new tourism product through the concept of a marine heritage trail, promoting sustainable economic benefits for local communities across the archipelago. This study highlights the substantial potential of marine heritage trails as a unique cultural tourism offering, enriching Indonesia’s tourism product landscape. Using a qualitative approach and activity-based segmentation, this research identifies potential market segments, each exhibiting distinct socio-demographic characteristics, travel profiles, and motivations. The findings provide insights into maritime tourism market segmentation and effective marketing strategies for developing maritime heritage-based tourism in Wakatobi and surrounding areas. The potential market for thematic marine heritage trail packages in Wakatobi is substantial, driven by the growing demand for educational and culturally immersive travel experiences among foreign tourists.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Aqilah Nurul Khaerani Latif
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/05/19
TI  - Market Potential of Marine Heritage Trails in Indonesia: Insights from Wakatobi, Sulawesi
BT  - Proceedings of The 5th International Conference on Linguistics and Cultural Studies 5 (ICLC-5 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 19
EP  - 29
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-394-8_4
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-394-8_4
ID  - Latif2025
ER  -