Post on 30-Jan-2023
SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA
Roby Ardiwidjaja1
ABSTRACT
The quality of the environment is essential for tourism. However, tourism's
relationship with many activities has negative environmental effects. On
the other hand, tourism has the potential to create beneficial effects on
the environment by contributing to environmental protection and
conservation. Increasing evidence shows that an integrated approach to
tourism planning and management in Indonesia is now required to
achieve sustainable tourism. Nowadays most countries believe that true
sustainable tourism development must involve the people and local
communities in which sustainable tourism attractions are being
developed. For emerging Indonesia as tourism destinations, the adoption
of policies for sustainable tourism development is important. It is widely
recognized that tourism development brings benefits, but also has the
potential to destroy the delicate ecological and cultural balance of host
communities. For Indonesia, policy development and strategic sustainable
tourism development are the key success to guide the development of
Indonesian tourism industry for generations to come.
Keywords: Sustainable Development-Tourism, Conservation, protection
environment, policy, communities, economic
BACKGROUND
Country Overview, Indonesia is the world’s largest
archipelago. After the New Order Era has ended in 1998,
1 Researcher of Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry
the face of Indonesia has been changed. The whole
nation has to face the economic turbulence and crisis
everywhere. On the order hand, freedom of the press and
freedom of speech are developing. People are more aware
and critical about social, economical and political
situation. This is a part of a learning curve about
democratization.
Indonesia’s archipelago with a tropical climate and
very humid, has a richness and diversity of natural
resources (beaches, volcanoes, tropical forests, and
wildlife) that is unique in the world. As well as the
natural beauty of Indonesia, visitors are able to see
and appreciate Indonesia’s cultural and social
legacies. They will know how Buddhism, Hinduism Islam,
and Christianity have all contributed to Indonesia’s
built heritage and its living culture.
Indonesia’s position is between Asia and Australia and
this country is as wide as the European continent. The
sea, with the major islands of Sumatra, Java,
Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua, occupies fourth-fifths
of the area. Even Papua and Kalimantan rank as the
second and third largest island in the world after
Greenland. This country is the world’s 14th largest
nation with cultural and nature diversity.
For culture diversity can be seen from more than 200
million people with 250-300 ethnic groups live in and
scattered over 17,000 islands spread across 5,120 km of
the tropical ocean. Most of them have their own
language and dialects, but Bahasa Indonesia is the
national language and is spoken throughout the
archipelago. For natural diversity can be seen from
some areas such as Java and Bali have the most fertile
islands and rice plantations are concentrated in these
two regions. Whereas Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi,
Maluku and Papua are the place of the tropical
rainforest, and open savannah grassland is in the Nusa
Tenggara. Moreover various animal species comes from
three different sources. Asian mammals are from the
west, Australian marsupial species and birds are from
the east and the endemic species are in the middle of
archipelago. Orangutan, tigers, one homed rhinos,
elephants, dugongs, anoas, komodo dragons are the proud
of Indonesia. Besides on land, deep down the sea, there
are more than hundred marine species as a part of the
archipelago’s treasure.
Overview of Culture and Tourism Department
Inter-sectoral and multi-disciplinary culture and
tourism development in a cooperative effort is not only
expected to encourage not only employment generation
and revenue enhancement in Indonesia. It is also
expected to bring other benefits are appreciation of
our national culture and diversity, increase in our
contribution to global civilization, encouragement of
nationwide unity, and improvement in relationships and
understanding among countries. In the long run, the
Ministry of culture and Tourism carried out important
tangible strategic activities in the cultural sector
based on a scale of priority in order develop the
public’s appreciation of our national art and culture.
Moreover, those efforts are also means to optimally
enhance our culture heritage as tourist attraction in
regional destinations. But while there are definite
tourism benefits to promoting cultural heritage, it
must be emphasize that the national culture development
is not to be treated as a cultural commodity. Cultural
heritage is a vital to development of the Indonesian
character and national aspiration as well as culture
enhancement each region
Indonesia’s Tourism development policy is an integral
part of national sustainable development aimed to
enhance Indonesia’ ability to utilize science and
technology in the term of global challenges. So in
effort to boost the acceleration of that international
and domestic tourist movement, department already
create 2 promotional tourism theme entitled Indonesia,
Ultimate in Diversity for international level and Ayo, Tamasya
Jelajahi Nusantara for domestic that both will show the
unique status of Indonesia.
With the Vision of culture and tourism development
stated Promote and develop dynamic environmentally
sustainable culture and tourism able to educate the
nation, increase civilization, encourage nationwide
unity, generate employment and revenue, and improve
peaceful relationships among countries.
So it is obvious, if the Indonesian government through
its Culture and Tourism Ministry drive the development
of culture and tourism along with others sectors. The
structure organization of Department Culture and
Tourism consist of 4 directorate general which in
charge of and responsible to the technical substance in
the field of Culture tourism. These directorate
generals should coordinate and facilitate with others
sector in order to integrate the strategic program
related to the tourism development.
TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA
Until now, Indonesia has still faced to draw any
significant economic benefit from is tourism
development. Although since the last 3 decades
Indonesia has nationally targeted tourism as a source
of foreign exchange after oil, textile and wood, but
still far from the aspired target. A relatively
spectacular achievement of foreign exchange from
tourism sector in 90’s (almost US$ 4000 millions) had
to drop again due to the economic and political crisis
hitting Indonesia. It can be conclude that the economic
benefit of tourism in Indonesia is still relatively low
considering the amount and variety of tourism resources
the country has to offer.
It is not easy to Indonesia as a developing country to
gain economic benefit from tourism development, because
of limited funding, the geographical position, and the
quality of human resources. In an international
context, Indonesia achieves only a relatively low
number of tourists coming from its neighboring
countries. This is probably due to a very small chance
to promote the short-vacation market due to the
geographical location of Indonesia, which is relatively
far from a potential market such as the European Union
or Japan. Further, a low quality of the human resources
involved in the tourism industry in Indonesia and
various changes in the national tourism development
such as uncertainty policies causes negative impacts
and consequently results in a low performance in their
tourism development. It can be said that the main
indicator of low tourism performance in Indonesia might
have contributed to the fact that Indonesia has failed
to increase tourist visit quota in the last decade.
Regarding that, the government nowadays was put forward
that in the future the orientation of the national
tourism development would focus tourism development
based on nature and culture.
The Indonesian government believes those natural and
cultural are the potential tourism assets that could
bring benefits to the local people and the country, if
the proper roles of government prepare designated
regions for tourists by good planning, minimizing the
harmful influences of tourists and protecting the local
culture and way-of-life. This has been adopted as the
template for tourism planning and development
throughout the country, which consist of around 400
autonomous regencies that want to gain economic benefit
from tourism sector.
Furthermore the national government realized both the
potential and pitfalls of tourism as an engine of
economic and social development for Indonesia. To avoid
the negative effects of unregulated and uncontrolled
growth, a national master plan for sustainable tourism
development for the entire country was mapped out,
supported by international agencies such as UNDF
UNESCO, WTO, and ILO working closely with the
appropriate government departments. Moreover,
provincial master plans for tourism development that
assess tourism’s social, economic, cultural and
environmental impacts in detail and guide its growth
also have been produced for selected provinces.
PROBLEMS IDENTIFICATION
It is strongly believed that there are many economic
benefits of tourism development, and there is also no
doubt that Indonesia has a high potential of tourism
resources. At least it has thousands of islands and
millions of hectares of tropical forests with a very
high bio-diversity as a natural tourism potential of
tropical regions. Hundreds of ethnic groups and their
culture can also be regarded as an extraordinary
tourism potential.
However, there are some basic questions that certainly
need to be answered. Firstly: “how should the resources
be used based on sustainable?” Although the above
question seems to be very simple, the answer is not.
Without a profound knowledge of tourism resources, it
will be difficult to determine the natural and cultural
potentials resources for tourism, market potentials,
and quality of human resources needed to plan and to
run the development. The second fundamental question,
which requires some solution, is: “how could the
sustainable tourism development concept be fitted into
other running development processes”. It is not an easy
task to introduce a new sect oral concept into the
running development process, which encompasses many
other aspects. In general, an introduction strategy
will always require the evaluation of the existing
development processes. Success or failure of the
development will also be determined by a careful and
precise planning that follows a clear orientation with
coherent development steps. Thirdly, how to change
perception, attitude and motivation of stakeholder to
get in line with the directions and criteria for the
new tourism development. This obviously also requires
specific knowledge, but is needed to achieve a high
selling price for the tourism products.
These fundamental problems would be even more crucial
for any local government. With various essential
limitations such as capital and human resources, the
local governments cannot solve various crucial problems
just through autonomy euphoria. One of the crucial
obstacles is natural resource exploitation (including
tourism resources), which is promoted just to finance
short-term development programs. With this
consideration in mind, it is regarded as necessary to
perform a study on sustainable tourism planning in
Indonesia especially at the local autonomous region
level.
Another factor that easily becomes a main obstacle for
Indonesia is limited funding. To restore a former mass
tourism destination, the government needs to work hard to
collect the funding from various levels of tourism
businessmen who are trying to survive with a decreasing
number of tourists in their post mass tourism
destination. On the other hand, the new destination
development in several regions also needs big funding
to be able to fulfill various existing requirements and
criteria such as to perform environmental impact
assessment (EIA) or water treatment, etc. If all the
costs are calculated in the investment, then the price
of the product will tend to be too expensive and will
only be afforded by certain exclusive consumers.
Meanwhile, exclusiveness is contradictory with the
criteria of the new paradigm of participatory
development approach; that also become an important
criteria towards sustainability.
The obstacle of limited funding is crucial in
Indonesia. On the one side, it really expects to have
economic benefit from tourism, on the other side,
Indonesia generally to finance various requirements and
criteria of sustainability. International investors are
one of the opportunities that Indonesia dream of
grabbing. However, international investment will always
end up with capital-loss or capital flight, which is a
characteristic of economic and politic situation.
Concern to all obstacles above, there is one question
to answer: “What should and could Indonesia does to be
able to afford a sustainable tourism development for
gaining an optimum benefit”. One of the possible
answers to that question is by “developing a good
planning through good governance”.
SUSTAINABLE TOURISM
Concepts and Terminology
Since the last decade, the tourism development paradigm
in this world has moved from a mass tourism concept
towards a new one whose term and meaning has not really
been comprehended well by scholars and practitioners.
For various similar ideas or concepts about the
importance of considering ecological, and socio-
cultural aspects in tourism development, some of the
terms used are ecotourism, soft tourism, nature based
tourism, forest tourism, responsible tourism,
alternative tourism, green tourism, small scale
tourism, sustainable tourism, low impact tourism, low
density tourism, ecological tourism, discreet tourism,
etc. Although the terminologies used vary, the various
proposed concepts generally involve three pillars of
sustainability, namely ecologically and environmentally
friendly, socio-culturally friendly, and economically
efficient.
The paradigm changes could be recognized by the changes
occurred due to a natural shift of trend and a result
of political pressure of world wide environmental
movement. The paradigm change stemmed from “back to
nature” movement that started widely since the
declaration of the World Conservation Strategy in 1980. The
conservation pillar then not only become unavoidable
concepts for any stakeholder but also become better
equipped as an important tool for implementing
sustainability concept in each development process.
In Indonesia, at a national, regional or at local
levels, the concept of sustainability equipped with the
three pillars has to be adopted and implemented in each
existing development sector, including the tourism
sector. However, it is far from easy to adopt and
implement this new tourism concept. There are too many
directly or indirectly related factors that the tourism
as a multi-sector must also simultaneously adapt and
adopt the sustainability concept, without an adequate
both process, it will be hard for the tourism sector to
be able implement the new paradigm. There are many
terms and concepts of sustainable tourism from many
experts, but the Brundtland concept can probably be
seen as one of sustainable development concept, which
has been adopted, developed and become in an
international parameter in any development of the
tourism sector for the last two decades.
Although the terms vary, the ideas and concepts behind
them are basically similar. The Agenda 21 for Travel
and Tourism clearly stated that in order to reach
sustainability, Travel and Tourism areas should base
their activities on the Rio Declaration on Environment
and Development. Important guidelines stated in the
Agenda 21 for Travel and Tourism are as follows: Travel
and tourism should assist people in leading healthy and
productive lives in harmony with nature, should
contribute to the conservation, protection, and
restoration of the Earth’s ecosystem, should be based
upon sustainable pattern of production and consumption.
Nations should co-operate to promote an open economic
system, in which international trade in Travel and
Tourism services can take place on sustainable basis.
Travel and tourism, peace, development, and
environmental protection are independent.
For Indonesia, the term sustainable tourism has
recently earned to be implemented sectoral in any
development activities. Various sustainability ideas of
nature (natural and cultural) related tourism have
tended to be blended into one term, namely ecotourism.
On the other hand, sustainability that is intended for
various comprehensive aspects and components of tourism
has tended to be referred as sustainable tourism.
Sustainable Tourism Principales
Sustainable tourism is one approach to development of
the tourism industry designed to provide a context that
can guide choices, bring together stakeholders so they
act in the common interest and help decision-makers see
more clearly how to balance the positive and negative
impacts at present and in the future. When decided to
develop the tourism industry, there are many different
forms of tourism that vary according to the location,
the interests of the tourists and the tourism resources
that are available. However, there are certain positive
impacts of tourism that are expected to contribute to
development. For example, economy support of a
community, new employment is created, community
stability can be maintained, amenities in the area are
enhanced and the community can build a sense of pride
and local identity. At the same time, planners and
stakeholders have to take into account possible
negative impacts from tourism.
One definition of sustainable tourism states that it is
tourism developed and maintained in an area (community,
environment) based on the main principles include the
following:
1. Residents must maintain control over tourism
development and planning requires broad-based
community input.
2. Quality employment must be provided for the
community along with education and training
programme.
3. Distribution of the benefits must be broad-based and
cooperation among local stakeholders is essential.
4. Intergenerational equity must be provided and
tourism businesses and other tourism agencies must
adopt long-term planning horizons.
5. Tourism strategies and plans must be linked to
broader initiatives reflected in economic
development plans of the community, region or nation
and move away from the traditional growth-oriented
model.
6. Harmony is required between the needs of the
visitor, the place and the community in order to
promote appropriate uses and activities.
7. The scale and type of tourism facilities must
reflect limits of acceptable use, and this means
guidelines are needed for tourism operations and
impact assessments must be required.
8. The community heritage and natural resources must be
maintained and enhanced using internationally
acceptable criteria and standards.
9. Marketing for sustainable tourism must provide for a
high quality tourist experience.
Moreover, the practice of sustainable tourism
development is based on management of capacities and
sites, namely carrying capacity that will measure the
level of use that is sustainable. However in the
management of tourism, carrying capacity approach
becomes more important to be implemented by focusing a
number of issues to be addressed. Say that every
environment serves multiple purposes and sensitivity to
different use levels depends on the values of all users
in terms of any different types of use has different
impacts. Carrying capacity can be useful because it
draws attention to limits and thresholds beyond which a
site should not be developed. There are a number of
ways to measure carrying capacity, including tangible
resource limits, tolerance by the host population,
visitor satisfaction, rates of growth, and other
quantifiable indicators.
One important aspect on carrying capacity that should
be concerned is site management. This management
involves managing visitors, educating visitors and
having a visitor use plan. There are a variety of means
that can be used to manage visitors by controlling or
restricting access. Visitors can be educated through
interpretation of local cultural values, by providing
cultural guidelines, having discussions and briefings
on arrival about appropriate behavior and by using
advertising and promotion campaigns. A visitor use plan
can be prepared to indicate and control the physical
access to sites.
While there are a set of principles and practices to
help guide sustainable tourism development,
stakeholders still face a number of challenges are as
follow:
1. Getting the public sector, including governments at
all levels,
2. To get involve actively in the process of conserving
and developing cultural heritage sites;
3. Obtaining the funds needed to develop products and
getting the government to serve as a joint venture
partner where appropriate;
4. Ensuring that tourism strategies and plans are
integrated and linked to broader development plans,
especially at the community level; encouraging local
businesses, tourism operators and other stakeholders
to cooperate;
5. Requiring impact assessments, including monitoring
and indicators, where tourism development involves
heritage resources and communities;
6. Making interpretation an essential part of the
development process;
7. Finding creative financing appropriate to developing
countries and areas of Asia and the Pacific where
financial resources might be limited.
TOURISM POLICY
The most important challenge for sustainable tourism
development concerns the perspective and expectations
that all stakeholders, particularly government policy-
makers, have about tourism’s contribution at the local,
regional and national levels. Indonesian government
view tourism as a vehicle for economic development,
given its potential to earn foreign exchange, create
employment, reduce income and employment disparities,
strengthen linkages among economic sectors and help to
alleviate poverty.
In order to sustain tourism, it is necessary for
government to address various issues arising from
tourism’s contribution to development in a
comprehensive, systematic way. Issues of policy-making,
planning, management and the participation of the
private sector and other stakeholders must be addressed
in terms of opportunities for action and possible
constraints that need to be overcome by concerted
efforts.
The challenge facing by government as policy-makers is
to have a broader perspective and better understanding
that there can be both positive and negative effects
from tourism development. Moreover, a broader
perspective challenges all stakeholders involved with
tourism from the community level to the national level
to find the means to work together in more proactive
ways that will increase the positive effects and
minimize the possible negative effects of tourism
development. Some creations that we can get from
sustainable tourism development are as follow:
1. Sustainable tourism development provides the
opportunity to take proactive approaches based on
broad participation by stakeholders, which would
contribute to more effective policies and plans.
This would increase the opportunities to realize the
full social and economic potential of the tourism
industry.
2. Sustainable tourism development creates the
opportunity for governments and all stakeholders in
the tourism sector to aim at ensuring long-term
prosperity and quality of life for future
generations.
3. Sustainable tourism development also creates
opportunities to preserve natural and cultural
heritages for tourists and local people in ways that
address development problems and reduce risks to the
environment and ways of life.
The government realize the aspect on how important to
make proper use of local resources, how to develop
human resources for community-based tourism and
management of cultural and heritage sites and where to
find the financial resources to support environmental
protection and promote community-based tourism in more
remote areas that are less developed. Another aspect
relates to what Indonesia need in order develop tourism
that would be economically viable, socio-culturally
acceptable and environmentally sustainable. This
involves process of enhancing national capabilities to
take actions to tourism that would bring benefits to
wide segments of society, and finding ways to ensure
that benefits should be shared equitably among various
stakeholders.
Since last view years, government facilitates broad
participation of all relevant stakeholders from the
national to the community level in the process of
tourism development planning and implementation. This
is a major program for addressing many issues related
to sustainable tourism development. Integrate tourism
planning through a new tourism master plan that
incorporate principles of environmental management,
becomes first priority of Indonesian government to
enhance participation capabilities at local levels and
community-based tourism of all stakeholders in order to
arrive at efficient and effective solutions, plans and
projects that are sustainable.
In Indonesian where authority is being decentralized
and greater public participation is being encouraged,
the government at national and regional level might
also evaluate investment policies and regulations to
encourage a wide variety of arrangements that could
enhance private sector participation in sustainable
tourism development. This will involve careful
decision-making and planning to balance accessibility
with carrying capacity at all levels, especially in
communities. Sustainable tourism development should
also be responsive to rapid changes and new demands in
the international tourist market.
STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM
Goals and Actions for Sustainable Tourism Development
Resources and tourism demand are not only viewed from
the viewpoint of the needs of the tourists coming from
outside but also of the local community in spending
their leisure time and fulfilling their recreational
need. The orientation of the planning for the tourists
coming from outside is not only focused on foreign
tourists but is also focused on the national tourists
coming from various parts of Indonesia.
The Criteria towards Sustainability
Various available literatures on sustainable tourism
are abundant and valuable to adopt when deciding about
the sustainability criteria that should be applied in
designing a Sustainable Tourism Master Plan in a
national and regional level.
We defines the term of sustainable tourism as various
forms of tourism offers which can provide an optimum
satisfaction to the tourists in a way predictable and
well measurable means so that optimum environmental,
socio-cultural and economic sustainability can be
achieved in each region. With this definition, an
optimum satisfaction for tourist, however, is also an
essential aspect when talking about a sustainable
tourism development Then for practical reason the
understanding of sustainable tourism above needs to be
further interpreted into applicable indicators that are
considered to be appropriate and necessary for
Indonesia to achieve sustainability in its tourism
development.
Regarding the definition of sustainable tourism above,
the set of criteria includes tourist aspect, ecological
aspects, socio-cultural aspects, and economic aspects
that should be oriented on an easy practice to be
identified and measured in the field by the local
people. For instance the criteria for environmental
aspects are also chosen including the idea to improve
the environmental through tourism activities.
Preserving the customs and traditional culture is the
main orientation of the criteria on socio-cultural
aspects. Similarly, the criteria made for the economic
aspects are oriented more on economic business that can
be performed by the community as a group.
The Choices towards Sustainable Tourism
Deciding about choices for the development direction is
turned out to be the most difficult part in the process
of designing the Master Plan as a part of strategy. One
of the difficulties is to bring various proposed
sustainability criteria into a tourism development
scenario that can fulfill various differing interests
among the stakeholders. Basically, it can be shown that
the tourism resources exist in almost all components of
the people’s living environments throughout the region
in Indonesia, and of course this will create the risk
that negative impacts of tourism activities may touch
all parts of their lives. Any further measures and
activities are focused on tourism development in
Indonesia, which can be said as ideal pictures of
tourism conditions that will be implemented within the
framework of national, and regional tourism development
visions and missions of missions.
SOME HIGHLIGHTS OF THE MASTER PLAN
1. The Target of Sustainable Tourism Development
Based on the visions and missions describe above, the
target of the sustainable tourism development as
identified in the master plan covers the aspects of
increasing the number of tourists, improving the
quality of the environment, empowering the local
community, increasing the Original Regional Income, and
developing throughout Indonesian regions. Increasing
the number of tourists as the main target, for example,
is in line with the high necessity to obtain economic
benefit from tourism. This target also includes the
efforts to increase the length of stay of each tourist
group. The total number of tourists going to visit
Indonesia in 2004 is an almost reach 5 million tourist.
These tourists come through the main gateways, such as
Soekarno-Hatta airport, Ngurah Rai airport and
Hasanuddin airport. In terms of the length of stay, is
intended to get increased to 6-9 days. This target
implicates the need to provide transportation
facilities and services from the some gateways to any
tourism destination in Indonesia, and to the
development strategies of tourism products and the
provision of tourism supporting facilities and
services.
In terms of Improvement Environment Quality, the
following development goals are targeted by government
is intended to be achieved through various management
strategies on both natural and cultural environment
such as: conservation and preservation of natural areas
and features, which are important as tourism
attraction, improvement of visual environment quality
through landscape management, building design and
allocation, conservation and preservation of traces
having historic value, and ancient buildings having
distinctive characteristics. Furthermore, controlled of
possible pollution resulting from the development of
tourism supporting facilities, prevention of land
destruction as a result of the development of tourism
supporting facilities and services by utilizing them in
accordance to the land/areas supports capacities,
controlled of the land use to prevent a change of land
functions, which may support the tourism development.
Finally, Conservation and preservation of ‘karsts’
ecosystems.
In terms of Empowering the local community, the target
of local community empowerment can be achieved as soon
as the local communities are ready to participate in
tourism development processes by increasing the quality
of the human resources who are or might be involved in
tourism development; through formal or informal
capacity-building amongst the community. It is then
possible to create the Community Based Tourism Development
(CBTD).
The strategy to Increase Original Regional Income can
be increased through various types of taxes and
retributions of the business related to tourism. This
is parallel with the expected increase of the number of
tourists visiting Indonesia. It can be assumed from
this strategy that the more tourists come for a visit,
the bigger the income obtained from various tourism
retributions and taxes will be.
Basically, the tourism development in Indonesia must be
able to support the regional development in general in
the way that the tourism development plan in any area
can be integrated with various other development plans
in other sectors. The fulfillment of the need of
tourism supporting facilities and services such as
electricity network, telephone network, and financial
institutions must also become a supporting factor for
the developing region either directly or indirectly. In
addition the improvement of the transportation
facilities and services from one tourism destination to
other tourism destination should be directed to provide
easy flow and distribution of people and commodities.
Development orientations
To develop sustainable tourism in Indonesia, the
government has formed the development orientations as a
guidelines which cover tourism spatial structures,
tourism products, accommodation, quality improvement of
the human resources and related institutions that are
involved in tourism development, and environmental
management in the context of tourism development.
Spatial Structure Development is needed to be formed in
order to increase the quality and intensity of tourism
services to the tourists as well as to create varieties
of different tourism activities in each spatial
management unit. Secondly to prevent the over
construction development in a development region.
Thirdly to anticipate changes and development of a
rural area into an urban area. It can be said this
spatial structure will motivate the villages to develop
this tourism potential and take advantage of the
development. Moreover, a regional system was also
implemented to facilitate the location selection for
tourism supporting facilities. In this system the
development of each region is based on the specific
character of the tourism attraction it has.
One of the characteristics of tourism is that the
product sold is more or less abstract. Regarding
Tourism Product Development, the government tries to
identify sort of attractive tourism product in
Indonesia. It is believed that the more varied the
experience can be obtained in tourism activities, the
higher the satisfaction and accordingly the selling
power will be. So to give experience that tourists
needed, the tourism resources must be well packaged.
With this condition the target of tourism product
development is to increase the number of visits and the
length of stay. To support this target, the product
development strategies will focus on firstly
diversifying the tourism activity types that can be
developed something new and managing the tourism
routes. Several main considerations to diversify
activity types and to design tourism routes are: (1)
different attractions of each existing tourism
resource, (2) limited time the tourists have, (3)
optimum satisfaction that can be gained by the
visitors, (4) visitors’ distribution, and (5) the
seasonality of resources availability. Secondly is
intensifying and revitalizing the existing tourism
objects. The intensification and revitalization of
existing objects and facilities aims at maximizing
their capacity without generating negative side
effects. For his purpose a development program needs to
be conducted to increase the object quality, increase
the attractions and create variations for the
revisiting tourists.
Amenities Development
The development of amenities facilities aims at
providing easiness to the tourists in fulfilling their
specific needs of amenities when they visit Indonesia.
Furthermore, this amenities development is directed to
support the development of tourism service centers,
which will in turn play a role in the regional
development in general.
Basically the development of amenities must use
ecological approaches to contribute to the improvement
of the environment quality. Moreover, the amenities
development must refer to the need of facilities
required by tourism activity types. The strategies used
to develop the amenities are: (1) intensification and
revitalization of the existing facilities, and (2)
diversification and extensification of amenities. A
government regulation that administers the tourism
amenities especially accommodation permit is absolutely
required to achieve the environmental target. The
development of amenities especially accommodation
should only be allowed at the less attractive locations
and based on the land capacity. With this regulation
the business people/investors will need to redesign the
amenities land and transfer it into a more attractive
one, which will have a high selling power. With this
regulation the exploration and exploitation of natural
areas with high esthetic value can be avoided.
The Strategic development for human resource aim to
produce highly qualified and creative people who are
ready to participate in tourism industry. Since they
are needed to support the community-based tourism
development and to empower the local community,
community members should also get opportunities to
improve their knowledge and skills. The strategy to
improve the quality of human resources is conducted
either through formal or informal education through
such as revitalization the existing a tourism training
center, increasing the teaching quality of the existing
tourism schools by increasing the quality and quantity
of the available educational facilities and services,
and training the community group in managing the small
tourism business.
Environmental Management
The Strategic development for environment management
involves two parts, namely physical and non-physical
environment (social and cultural) of a tourism
activity. The objective of the environment management
is to optimize the benefit/positive impact and
monitoring the impact of tourism development. In the
context of physical environment, there are several
tasks need to be done to support the tourism
development such as implementing multi-function land
use concepts, regulating and designing the building
establishment along the corridors having beautiful
panorama. In relation to the cultural tourism resources
as one of the typical tourism characteristics in
Indonesia, it is necessary to generate an ethic
guideline for tourism.
As known, Indonesia rich historical, cultural and
natural attractions that have contributed to the
development of tourism, have had both positive and
negative effects on development. Small-scale tourism
development projects that are community-based, focus on
an ethnic group at a remote location and involve NGOs
are less well known. For the last several years, a
community-based sustainable tourism project has been
implemented in some tourism destination. There are a
number of reasons why sustainable tourism in terms of
ecotourism should be community based in Indonesia.
Perhaps the main reason is the General Guideline of
National Development (PROPENAS) in tourism aspects,
where the government mandates that tourism development
is a goal and that communities should increase their
welfare through sustainable community development. In
order to achieve sustainability when implementing
community-based development, the important issues are
participation in decision-making and access to the
market. At the same time, communities will need
capacity building through training to provide
additional new skills to manage tourism base on
sustainable and related services.
CONCLUSION
A fundamental question to be answered by Indonesian
government related to tourism development is “how
tourism resources should be developed to achieve a
sustainability?”. Each destination has a distinctive
feature as well as specific potentials and problems,
which require a specific planning strategy and unique
measures to achieve sustainability. However,
construction and development opportunities of a
destination in a regional context cannot be separated
from the condition and the framework of the tourism
development at the national level.
In terms of tourism planning at a national level is
that a “single major destination” development strategy
cannot be conducted in Indonesia as an archipelagic
country. Although a “single major destination”
development has really been one of the efficient ways
to accelerate the promotion and marketing process of a
tourism destination in a national level, it needs to be
realized that destination variations are important in
tourism, which is in line with the variety required in
the tourism demand itself.
Various resources in a destination must be viewed
holistically either for the need of tourism or to
fulfill the life necessities of the local community.
Moreover the socio-cultural and economic dynamics in a
destination have very important impact on the
achievement of the three pillars of sustainability.
Although the local community can be said to have enough
awareness of the potential benefit of a sustainable
development, their mean time daily life necessity
cannot merely be neglected. Without economic
improvement, the two major survival patterns of the
local community – extensive exploration of natural
resources and migration to urban areas – will equally
lead to negative impacts and counteract all three
pillars of sustainability. Various alternatives are
needed that can provide optimum economic benefit as
well as maximum positive impact to the environment
conditions.
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