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Edunity

Volume 2 Number 11, November 2023

p- ISSN 2963-3648- e-ISSN 2964-8653

Doi:

https://edunity.publikasikupublisher.com/index.php/Edunity/index

ANALYSIS OF EXTREME GASTRONOMY TOURISM

AS A POTENTIAL PANDEMIC IN TOMOHON CITY,

NORTH SULAWESI, INDONESIA

Verena Lunardy

, Budi Setiawan

Pradita University Tangerang, Indonesia

Email: [email protected]a.ac.id

, [email protected]

ABSTRACT

Abstract: Extreme gastronomy tourism can usually be defined in many ways, be it because of

the cooking methods or the interesting ingredients. Some countries like China and Thailand have

unique gastronomy, and so does the city of Tomohon in Indonesia. In fact, it has turned into one

of the world’s threads since the extreme ingredients were part of the pandemic’ causes. Not to

mention, most of them are taken from the wildlife where we can not predict whether they have

been vaccinated or not yet. This trouble will eventually cause the countries all over the world

would start another lockdown which will also affect the tourism due to lack of mobility, on the

other hand tourism has turned into one of the factors on why the world’s increased recently. In

short, it can be concluded that the impact of pandemic can stop the tourism activity and affecting

on a country’s economy too. This journal is reviewing journals literature where were taken from

Google Scholar, Nature and Pubmed. Pandemic mostly happened due to the dissemination of

virus in many ways which are direct contact or indirect contact. In fact, most of them are caused

by food and spread through the physical touch and fluids, in addition the longer the chain of the

virus will cause more toxicity to the other host. And the worst the diseases, the later will it

resolves and causing an economic instability. It will eventually impact the economy flow and

stability.

Keywords: Tourism; Extreme Gastronomy; Pandemic

Introduction

Extreme gastronomy market basically can be defined as the market that sells unusual meat

by the locals such as insect, snake, mouse, bat, frog, cat and dog (Woolf, Zhu, Emory,

Zhao, & Liu, 2019). Aside from having an extreme way to be eaten, this well-known

unusual cuisine is also being consumed due to the nutrient richness. In short, these meats

which are sold in the extreme market are classified as extreme cuisine. These meats are

consumed by humans due to the nutrients given in it, cats can cure the asthma disease

and snakes can keep human’s skin nutritious and gentle (Adipati, Pitana, & Bhaskara,

2022)

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Consuming extreme cuisine has widely spread all over the world, there are some famous

countries such as China, Korea, Japan, Thailand and Indonesia as part of the culture

(Hopkinks, 2019; (Valencia, 2020); (Yudhana, Praja, & Supriyanto, 2019). In Indonesia,

there are a lot of cities which sell extreme cuisine, but Tomohon has turned into the most

well-known city for extreme cuisine, either raw or cooked. (Adipati et al., 2022) ; (Gao et

al., 2022).

Figure 1 │ The Tomohon Extreme Market (RNR Travel, 2012).

Figure 2 │ The Tomohon Market (Mirror, 2020).

Most of the diseases in the world are caused by the zoonotic aspect and usually animal

turns into one of the agents with various way to deliver it as being bitten or consuming

them (Rahman et al., 2020); (Bauer, Zhang, & Linhardt, 2021), Warm-blooded birds and

mammals usually become one of the most easily infected hosts (Angel et al., 2020)

Saldarriaga Cartagena, & Sullivan Jr, 2020). Either pandemic or endemic are not only

considered as infectious but also dangerous due to the spread speed, how they spread are

usually through fluid, physical contact and consuming the hosts or surfaces (Morens &

Fauci, 2020; (Valencia, 2020)

Tomohon is well-known as a city which sells extreme cuisine with various unusual meats

such as cats, dogs, rats, wild boards, snakes, pigs, bats etc (Tamboto, Tambingon,

Lengkong, & Rotty, 2021). As mentioned before, some foods basically can be an agent for

zoonotic parasites to spread and there were cases as coronavirus was spread initially from

Seafood Market (Valencia, 2020), avian influenza through the contact and consumption of

the poultries (Phan et al., 2020)

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Verena Lunardy, Budi Setiawan

Due to the breakouts, there are lots of preventions that are done to vaccinate the agent or

infected humans (Carpenter et al., 2022). But that does not mean that all of the animals

including the wild animals will get vaccinated, it is said that most of the supply on

Tomohon market is basically being taken from the wildlife which we cannot reassure if

the species were all being vaccinated which would elevate a potential risk to human health

and might turn into an endemic (Gao et al., 2022).

Research Method

This research conducted a closer descriptive qualitative through the literature review of

the extreme gastronomy tourism in Tomohon as a potential pandemic in the future. This

journal reviewed the extreme gastronomy tourism as a potential pandemic in Tomohon

City, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. The design of an alternative solution-related study was

a literature review that is sourced from textbooks, neither national nor international

journal articles, and statistics data that are relevant to the problem and purpose of the

research (Cresswell, 2014). The data is collected by looking at the related popular scientific

articles with the related keywords which are extreme gastronomy tourism, potential

pandemic, and Tomohon City through search engine as Google Scholar, Nature, and PMC

Result And Discussion

Extreme Gastronomy Tourism

As mentioned in theoretical framework, extreme gastronomy tourism mentioned as an

activity which has a main goal to serve tourists with an assimilation of the localization

and ornamental culinary and let the participants to enjoy an impressive impression and

excitement. In conclusion, an extreme gastronomy is not only explaining about the seldom

way of process of cooking but also about the ingredients of a cuisine.

In Tomohon city, having wildlife as main dishes are very casual, even it turns into one of

offerings during the Minahasan’s thanksgiving tradition. The animals that mentioned are

snakes, bats, wild boar, dogs and rats, but they also serve the normal meats such as

chicken, cow, pigs and etc (Sondakh & Yoesoef, 2022)

It is mentioned above that extreme gastronomy tourism has the factor of cultural and

material (De Jong et al., 2018), the extreme cuisines in Tomohon has it all. It has turned

into one of the cultures to have and consume the unvaccinated wildlife, even being

counted as one of the offerings. The offerings are given to Opo Empung Wailan Wangko or

Almighty God after the blessings of abundant harvest in Tomohon (Sondakh & Yoesoef,

2022)

Pandemic

The number of deaths which caused by pandemic is unpredictable, there is no specific

number that can be predicted by the experts. The evidence can be seen through the

COVID-19 cases which approximately killed 18 million excess deaths which recorded

starting from Jan 1, 2020 to Dec 27, (Wang et al., 2022). Most of the cases are caused by

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some specific organisms which is leading to the infection from wildlife to people (Morens

& Fauci, 2020).

In this one last century, pandemic which happened has the same causes which are the

rooting of flu virus. Starting from the Spanish flu pandemic that happened in 1900s until

the recent pandemic which is caused by 2020. The pathogen moves from one organism to

another is through the people movement, but lately it has greatly increase through the

human-wild animal contact in places such as market which means Tomohon city’s

extreme gastronomy can be part of the source of pathogens’ distribution (Morens & Fauci,

2020).

The COVID-19 pandemic was originally caused by the seafood in Huanan Seafood Market

(Valencia, 2020), the mobilities during the first outbreak was still normal until the diseases

spread slowly to other countries. The virus mutated from the type A until omicrons where

the main role was from the animals. Not to mention, extreme gastronomy in Tomohon

sells typical of unusual cuisine such as cats, dogs, bats, forest rats, wild boars, cattle pigs,

snakes, etc (Tamboto et al., 2021) which in some cases had cause diseases transmission

through the direct contact with the animal.

Zoonotic

As mentioned above, zoonotic has turned into one of the deadly diseases causes. It can be

seen through the latest pandemic that happened at the 2020 which in COVID-19

coronavirus pandemic. The reported mortality due to the COVID-19 case was totalled 5.94

million worldwide, but the mortality was estimated death 18.2 million. The highest excess

of mortality estimated was in India (4.07 million), the USA (1.13 million), Russia (1.07

million), Mexico (798.000 million), Brazil (792.000 million), Indonesia (736.000) and

Pakistan (664.000) (Wang et al., 2022).

Several famous diseases were caused by the zoonotic causes such as AIDS, Avian flu,

Covid/MERS/SARS, Hepatitis E, Rabies, Plague, Malaria and Toxoplasmosis. The causes

of those diseases can be seen through the table 1.

Table 1. Common Zoonotic Diseases

Diseases

Pathogen

Animal

Insect Vector

AIDS

HIV Lentivirus

Chimps

Avian flu

Influenza A H5N1

Waterfowl

Covid/MERS/SARS

Coronavirus

Bats, civets/camels

Hepatitis E

Orthohepevirus HEV

Rats

Rabies

Lyssavirus

Bats

Flea

Plague

Yersenia Pestis

Rats and rodents

Toxoplasmosis

Toxoplasma gondii

Cats, dogs, Goats, Sheep

(Wang et al., 2022); (Angel et al., 2020) , Vanagas, Ruiz, Cristaldi, Saldarriaga Cartagena

& Sullivan, 2020)

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Verena Lunardy, Budi Setiawan

Hereby, the author can conclude that AIDS, Avian flu, Covid/MERS/SARS/, Hepatitis E

and Rabies are caused by the virus, Plague is caused by bacteria and Toxoplasmosis is

caused by protozoa. And through the table above, it can be seen that most of the hosts of

the diseases are wild animals which are sold in Tomohon city and it does not preclude the

possibility of North Sulawesi as a pioneer of the pandemic outbreak.

Food Chain

As explained in theoretical framework, the higher food chain a food has will contain the

higher toxicity which is shown in figure 3. The reason why it happens can be seen through

the figure 5.

Figure 5│Zoonic Diseases: Etiology, Impact and Control.

(Rahman et al., 2020)

The flow how it gets into the human’s body is very complex. Initially, the pathogens are

basically living inside the producer level one, then being consumed by the consumers and

predators. The pathogens carry by the producer might not be very dangerous in some

producer body system, since normally the consumers are from kingdom neither plantae

nor fungi which has different cells from the consumers which generally are from the

kingdom animalia. The basic cells between two of them are different and its effects on the

way how the body will terminate the pathogens, even for each of the kingdom will have

the different cells order, organ and body protection system.

It becomes most deadly disease when the pathogen has reached human. Initially, the

consumer level one eats or has a direct contact to the zoonotic pathogens, it will start to

adapt and adjust with the host’s body. The transmission happened to the consumer level

one; it might not directly affect the host. However, it depends on how the pathogens

multiple itself and affect neither the host’s cells multiplication system nor misleads the

hosts to attack the pathogens for protects the body. Then, when it starts to adjust with the

current host, there will be a combination between the pathogen cells and host’s cell which

cause a transmission indirectly.

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Tourism’s Economic Factor

Tourism has a crucial impact onto our world’s economic factor, not to mentioned it turned

into world’s biggest bound income. The pandemic has turned into biggest fear for the

world since it has turned the world into a whole messed especially the tourism sector.

Based The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in 2022, we lost approximately 1.58

trillion US Dollars across 132 countries in the world (Sun, Li, Lenzen, Malik, & Pomponi,

2022)

The contribution of tourism in Indonesia’s economic development can be seen through

the Gross Domestic Products. In 2015 to 2019, the changes of GDP are not too striking but

steadily showing a decent improvement. Based on Statistic Central Centre (Badan Pusat

Statistik), tourism contributed 4.25% of GDP in 2014 and 5.50% of GDP in 2019. And the

most significant change can be seen in 2018 to 2019 where the increasing value of GDP

raised to 1% of the total GDP annually with total number of tourists (Haryana, 2020)

Table 2. Statistics Central Centre, 2019

Tourism GDRP's Contribution in 34 Provinces in Indonesia (%)

Provinces

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

ACEH

1.06

1.14

1.19

1.27

1.32

SUMATERA UTARA

2.20

2.24

2.27

2.31

2.37

SUMARETA BARAT

1.00

1.01

1.05

1.09

1.12

RIAU

0.44

0.45

0.46

0.47

JAMBI

1.02

0.98

1.00

1.03

1.06

SUMATERA SELATAN

1.13

1.19

1.25

1.28

N/A

BENGKULU

1.45

1.50

1.56

1.63

1.67

LAMPUNG

1.27

1.32

1.34

1.38

1.45

KEP. BANGKA BELITUNG

2.27

2.25

2.27

2.31

KEPULAUAN RIAU

1.94

2.13

2.26

DKI JAKARTA

5.01

4.99

4.98

4.94

JAWA BARAT

2.40

2.47

2.55

2.63

2.69

JAWA TENGAH

3.07

3.11

3.14

3.17

3.26

DI YOGYAKARTA

9.32

9.39

9.44

9.52

9.57

JAWA TIMUR

4.97

5.08

5.22

5.34

5.45

BANTEN

2.29

2.31

2.36

2.42

2.46

BALI

19.55

19.60

19.65

20.30

20.27

NUSA TENGGARA BARAT

1.81

1.57

1.64

1.75

NUSA TENGGARA TIMUR

0.59

0.60

0.65

0.70

0.75

KALIMANTAN BARAT

2.29

2.31

2.29

2.26

2.30

KALIMANTAN TENGAH

1.65

1.67

1.70

1.68

1.70

KALIMANTAN SELATAN

1.80

1.85

1.89

1.92

1.95

KALIMANTAN TIMUR

0.68

0.74

0.79

0.84

0.89

KALIMANTAN UTARA

1.20

1.24

1.29

1.37

1.45

SULAWESI UTARA

2.14

2.19

2.32

2.33

2.32

SULAWESI TENGAH

0.55

0.53

0.51

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Tourism GDRP's Contribution in 34 Provinces in Indonesia (%)

Provinces

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

SULAWESI SELATAN

1.36

1.34

1.36

1.42

1.49

SULAWESI TENGGARA

0.57

0.58

GORONTALO

2.15

2.19

2.23

2.32

2.34

SULAWESI BARAT

0.24

0.25

0.24

MALUKU

1.80

1.83

1.73

1.71

1.69

MALUKU UTARA

0.44

0.43

0.46

0.47

0.46

PAPUA BARAT

0.49

0.51

0.53

0.54

0.55

PAPUA

0.68

0.66

0.67

0.66

INDONESIA

5.81

5.83

5.72

5.79

5.80

(Haryana, 2020)

The contribution of North Sulawesi in Indonesia’s GDP number was raising from the rank

in 2014 with 2,14% to the 8

in 2018 with 2,32% of contribution as shown in table 2 (BPS,

2019). This province also can be considered as the developing tourism area and might

grow more than the number it was holding onto.

Retrieved from the latest pandemic, the whole world should shut their travelling activity

down, even mobility is limited. There was a very significant decline in economic growth

which caused massive losses in many sectors, especially tourism. Each of countries in the

world including Indonesia shut each province and caused some tourism sector such as

hotels and aviation had huge losses. If Tomohon city had turned into the pioneer of the

pandemic, the mobilities there would have limited and the city would have been locked

down which cause limitation of economic activities.

Conclusion

The extreme gastronomy tourism in Tomohon city is basically typical of tourism which

provide a unique cuisine such as cats, dogs, bats, forest rats, wild boars, cattle pigs, snakes,

etc. The types of food usually traded in such extreme markets are divided into two

categories, un-cooked food and cooked food. The cuisines which are sold there might be

the media for the pathogen’s dissemination through neither the consumption nor the

direct contact.

Economic of a country and region is very important, but it is better if there is a

simultaneous change. In order to prove the economic growth, gross domestic product

(GDP) can be an indicator. Through tourism, the world’s gross domestic product has

increase more than 10% which means the world’s economic grow slowly but enhance. For

instance, it might be concluded that the tourism activity has gradually increase the neither

world nor Indonesia. In Indonesia especially North Sulawesi’s GDP has grown from

2.14% in 2014 to 2.32% in 2018, the changes might not be significant but the healthy

economic will cautiously grow and sustain in a long term.

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On the other hand, in last one century, approximately 60% of the diseases that occurs are

caused by the zoonotic causes. It started from epidemic and turned into pandemic by

many pathways of transmission. During the Spanish flu, the disease outbreak was caused

by the travelling activity and many other ways. There is even a disease can only spread

through the sexual intercourse or human’s bleeding area which is Human

Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. Lately, the spread

of virus came through the direct contact of between neither human to the wildlife nor

human to human.

The pandemic has caused more than 150 countries locked down which means the

travelling activity should be knocked down in order to reduce the dissemination of the

disease. In short, if a country was being locked down, then the travelling activity should

be stopped, which lead to the economic growth since there are no tourists which come to

the following country or region. Not to mention, the last pandemic caused more than 18

million deaths even though World Health Organization (WHO) along with countries all

over the world had already worked together to prevent the citizens by social distancing,

washing hands, wearing mask and sanitizing procedures. But unscrupulous individuals

did not follow the regulation and caused the mutation of the virus, which does not exclude

the possibility of Tomohon city’s extreme gastronomy might cause pandemic and had the

virus mutated.

In brief, it can be concluded that if there were going to be another pandemic and lock

down, it will sequentially affect the tourism travelling mechanism and the economy of a

region. Moreover, if a region depends on the tourism sector the most, the GDP of the

following region will certainly be affected. In short, the economic will turn unhealthy due

to the significant decline of economic growth

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