ABSTRACT
Java is a land of unique cultural traditions that continually attracts visitors with its ancient temples, court dances, shadow-puppet theatre, and unique cuisine. Due to the Javanese world’s cultural diversity, the island may be fascinating for curious tourists because of its rich mythology, among the characters of which is the goddess of the Southern Sea–Nyai Roro Kidul. Unlike other female deities, the cult of which developed in pre-Islamic Java, only Nyai Roro Kidul organically fit into the Indo-Muslim synthesis of Javanese culture 16th and 17th centuries. This study aims to analyze the queen of the Southern Sea of Java Island’s story as touristic attractiveness. The research method used in this study is descriptive with a qualitative approach. The result shows that the vivid cultural tradition contributes to popularizing the image of the sea goddess: folk stories provided by informants, Internet-lore, films, and literary works by some modern Indonesian writers. The article presents the facts discovered by anthropologists and shows that the myth is associated with particular locations on the map of Java, including beaches and hotels. The selection of mythological material is made by the purpose of the study–to increase the tourist potential of Java and make it even more attractive for internal and external tourism.
