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.

List of Refferences:Proceeding Makalah pada Diskusi Panel Kajian Pariwisata

Berkelanjutan, Gedung Sapta Pesona 23-28 Agustus 2003.

UNEP/CBD, Convention on Biological Diversity: “Framework for

the development of guidelines for activities related to sustainable tourism

development and biological diversity in vulnerable terrestrial, marine and

mountain ecosystems” Santo Domingo, 2001.

Inskeep, Edward. Tourism Planning. An Integrated and

Sustainable Development Approach, 1991.

Environment Ministers on Biodiversity and Tourism,

International Conference, “The Berlin Declaration on Biological

Diversity and Sustainable Tourism”, Berlin, 1997.

Kementerian Lingkungan Hidup. Agenda 21 Tourism

Kementerian Perencanaan dan Pembangunan Nasional/Badan Perencanaan

Pembangunan Nasional (Bappenas), Pengelolaan Sumberdaya Alam

Dengan Strategi Kemitraan. Naskah Kebijakan, 2002.

The English Tourism Council (ETC), 20 National Sustainable

Tourism Indicators, England, 2002.

Clare A. Gunn, Tourism Planning, Basic Concepts Cases

Chris Cooper, John Fletcher, David Gilbert and Stephen

Wanhill. Tourism Principles and Practice. Longman Group

Limited, Malaysia, 1996

Draft Internasional Guidelines on Sustainable Tourism, CBD,

2002.

John Minnery, Myra P Gunawan, Michael Fagence, Darryl Low

Choy, Planning Sustainable Tourism, ITB, Bandung, 1997

Kebijakan dan strategi Nasional Pengembangan Wisata Ekologi

Alam (draft IV), kantor Menteri Negara LH, 1998

Martin Mowforth and Ian Munt, Tourism and Sustainability,

New York, 1988

Pedoman Umum Pengembangan Ekowisata Daerah, Direktorat

Jenderal Pembangunan Daerah, Direktorat Sumber Daya

Daerah, Jakarta, 2000.

Sustainable Tourism Development Guide for Local Planners,

USM and the Envvironment Pubication, Spain, 1993