Amid the outbreak of COVID-19, South Korea is still actively promoting its culture and tourist destinations to global audiences. Through the initiative of Imagine Korea Virtual Reality, the country invites foreign people to view Korean sightseeing places and tourist spots. Based on Imagine Korea as the case study material, our study attempted to identify the perceptions, feelings, and expectations of Indonesian consumers of Hallyu through virtual tourism offered by South Korea. The study employed in-depth interviews with 15 respondents who often consume Korean pop culture. The result revealed that most respondents had never experienced or had been interested in any virtual tours offered during the pandemic. Nevertheless, the experiments changed their perceptions of the entertainment virtual tours can provide throughout the COVID-19 crisis. While most respondents agreed that virtual tours sparked their interest in visiting Seoul after the pandemic ended, they mainly stated that virtual tours could never replace traditional travel. Thus, instead of serving as an alternative form of tourism during COVID-19 and afterwards, the study indicated the potential of virtual tours to be a primary destination marketing tool, one that can help visitors better design their itinerary routes and learn about local attractions.

This article contributes to the debate of small centre urbanization and positions it amidst three emerging challenges: urban-rural transformation, economic experimentation, and disaster risk mitigation. To examine the entanglement of the three forces, we analysed the expansion of the Pangandaran urban area – a small urbanizing area in West Java. This expansion occurred as part of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project, in the form of a regional infrastructure plan including railway, airport, and harbour development to accommodate tourism flux. This study uses discursive and qualitative approaches to rural-urban transformation with data gathered through document analysis, mapping, and FGDs with local stakeholders. The results show that although urbanization was a complex process with promises of extensive infrastructure developments and national projects, little attention has been paid to the internal urban structure, utilities, and increasing vulnerability to natural disasters in Pangandaran. The study also addresses how urban theories and policies should deal with the complexities of small urban areas in Indonesia.

Depressive symptoms in people during the outbreak of Covid-19 have been reported across the globe. In the period where people are forced to withdraw from the crowd and isolate themselves, coping with mental health is indeed very challenging. Previous studies showed how fandom or the state of being a fan of someone or something could create healthy support systems and a feeling of belonging. Focusing on Indonesia's case, this paper aims to understand better why people consume K-wave content during the pandemic and whether consuming it could bring comfort in coronavirus's widespread. The first survey was carried out online in August 2020 and collected 254 responses through random sampling. Meanwhile, the second survey was conducted in early January 2021 and retrieved 100 answers. This study's findings provide pieces of evidence on the rise in consumption of K-wave content in Indonesia during the pandemic. K-wave content can be considered as a form of entertainment that saves people in the face of a pandemic. From the questionnaire results, respondents verified that K-wave content consumption is an option to fill their free time, keep a social and emotional connection, and overcome several mental health syndromes they experience during the COVID-19 crisis.