SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA: LOCAL GOVERNMENT�S ROLE AND STRATEGIES (A CASE STUDY OF THE YOGYAKARTA SPECIAL REGION)

WITA RATRI DEWI S, Prof. Jin Du

2018 | Tesis | Magister Ekonomika Pembangunan

Sektor pariwisata memberikan kontribusi besar dalam peningkatan pertumbuhan ekonomi dan pengaruh sosial di setiap negara termasuk Indonesia. Namun seiring dengan semakin berkembangnya bisnis pariwisata, hal ini dapat memberikan dampak negatif yang signifikan pada sistem sosial, sumber daya alam dan kurang tercapainya lingkungan yang berkelanjutan. Dengan demikian, konsep pariwisata berkelanjutan menjadi krusial dalam rangka membendung potensi kerusakan lingkungan di masa yang akan datang. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisa bagaimana upaya peningkatan dalam pengembangan pariwisata berkelanjutan, serta mengetahui peranan dan strategi Pemerintah Daerah di wilayah Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah deskriptif kualitatif dengan menggunakan studi kasus di Desa Wisata Nglanggeran, Pathuk, Gunung Kidul, sedangkan alat ukur yang digunakan yaitu analisis SWOT dilengkapi dengan matriks IFE-EFE. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa (1) perkembangan pariwisata di suatu daerah dapat dikatakan sebagai pariwisata yang berkelanjutan apabila dapat memenuhi tiga pilar konsep keberlanjutan; (2) sektor pariwisata di Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta telah menjadi sektor fundamental sebagai penyumbang Produk Domestik Bruto terbesar yang mengarah pada pertumbuhan ekonomi dan pengentasan kemiskinan; (3) keberadaan Kelompok Sadar Wisata (POKDARWIS) di Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta sangat penting dalam rangka percepatan perkembangan pariwisata berkelanjutan; (4) Pemerintah Daerah memiliki pengaruh yang signifikan dalam pengembangan pariwisata berkelanjutan terutama dalam konservasi keanekaragaman hayati, dan bertanggung jawab dalam perencanaan penggunaan lahan, peraturan tenaga kerja dan lingkungan, prasarana konstruksi, layanan sosial dan lingkungan; (5) semakin berkembang sektor pariwisata di suatu daerah maka potensi kerusakan alam juga semakin tinggi. Dinamika pariwisata yang meluas mendesak peran dan strategi dari pemangku kepentingan terkait dengan sektor pariwisata terutama Pemerintah Daerah agar dapat sejalan dengan ekspansi.

The tourism sector may contribute to a huge part for boosting economic growth and have impressive social influences in each country, including Indonesia. However, with more and more countries promoting the business of tourism, brings to light significant negative impacts on the social systems, natural resources, and the lack of sustainability on environment. A combination between tourism and sustainability is urged to stem the tide of environmental damage in the future. 2 Three components of the sustainability principles, referred as triple bottom line, contains; (1) Environmental aspect, that sustainable tourism should eco-friendly. It should not harm to flora, fauna, habitats, water, living marine resources, energy use, and contamination. Ideally, it tries to add benefits to the environment; (2) Social and cultural aspects. It preserves the local community culture, traditions and less harm to the society. It involves all tourism-related stakeholders not only in the planning, developing and monitoring phases, but also educating the roles of stakeholders; (3) Economical aspect. It creates economic well-being of the community, stimulating sustainable and equitable profits for many tourism-related stakeholders particularly for the local communities. It provides benefits not only for owners, but also for employees and neighbors. It does not simply get hits and then rapidly goes down due to poor business practices. The triple bottom line should be concerned to create long-term sustainability in tourism development. It means that running a tourism business can be profitable but should not bring damage to the economy, cultural and natural resources. This research focuses on sustainable tourism development namely the Yogyakarta Special Region (YSR) with a case study in Nglanggeran Tourism Village. YSR, simply called as Yogyakarta, is the 2nd famous tourist destination after Bali Island. Located in the middle of Java Island, it takes only about 1.5 hour to reach from Bali Island by plane. Yogyakarta is a famous icon of Javanese culture and the Sultanate Palace (1450s) was constructed there more than 550 years ago. Enriched with Javanese culture attractions, historical places and marvelous natural resources, the interests to visit Yogyakarta keeps growing rapidly year by year from both the domestic and foreign tourists. 3 The great potential of the tourism industry in the YSR is underlined by being award several international tourist awards. One such award is the ASEAN Sustainable Tourism award that Nglanggeran Tourism Village, Yogyakarta, received in the beginning of 2018. This achievement is not well broadcasted by the government, particularly in other local areas to further enhance the sustainably of tourism development. Therefore, the role and strategies of local government in the YSR needs improvement and innovations. The researcher challenge here is to investigate and analysis, and ultimately provide sound argues and recommendation on Sustainable Tourism in Indonesia: The Local Governments Role and Strategies, as a case study of the Yogyakarta Special Region (YSR) in a qualitative way. The investigation was carried out to better understand how to enhance the sustainable tourism development program in the YSR and what are the local government's strategies in tourism development toward sustainability in the YSR, if any. This study found that (1) tourism development in a region is considered as sustainable tourism only if it fulfills the three key components called triple bottom line or three pillars of sustainability; (2) tourism industry in the Yogyakarta Special Region (YSR) has become the fundamental sector as the greatest contributor to the GDP in the captive areas leads to economic growth and poverty alleviation in the region; (3) the existence of the Tourism Awareness Group or Community-based tourism is essential to speed up the sustainable tourism in the YSR; (4) the local government has the most significant influence on sustainable tourism development especially for the implementation of tourism and biodiversity conservation and is fundamentally responsibility for many functions such as land use planning, labor and 4 environmental regulations, construction of infrastructure, and then social and environmental services. However, to address the sustainability matter requires the mutual commitment from both the public and private tourism-related stakeholders to attain the best result; (5) the more developed the tourism industry is in a region, the more potencies of environmental damage may occur. As the dynamics of tourism development itself expands, the role and strategies of tourism-related stakeholders particularly local governments are urged to be in advance or at the very lease be in line with the expansion. According to the findings and analysis, the researcher would argue a few recommendations points as; (1) to enhance sustainable tourism development in the YSR, the local governments should review tourism related document policies. From the researchers viewpoint, the local governments programs/actions are mostly only focusing on increasing the number of tourists visit but neglecting programs that will preserve the biodiversity and/or environment of each respective area. The findings of this case study show that if the tourism activities can be well-managed, even though the number of tourists visit decline, economic profit is still possible and can be optimized to generate adequate funds that can be funneled towards limiting environmental damage to the area. Therefore, strategies in tourism activities should be innovated and improved periodically; (2) Due to the new international airport development in Kulon Progo regency, it is expected that economic development in the area will be well-spread out among the vicinity regencies and districts and not just focused on the central city in addition, the distance from the new international airport in Kulon Progo regency towards the Gunungkidul regency is approximately about 70-80 kilometers. Since there are so many tourism attractions in the 5 Gunungkidul regency, it is recommended that Gunungkidul and Kulon Progo regencies solidly collaborate so that both regencies will earn the benefits of tourism activities. As a first step, infrastructures connecting the two areas are to be urgently constructed; (3) It is essential to develop a more sustainable transportation mode connecting the various tourism destinations and thereby improve the general accessibilities of the nearby tourism destinations; (4) Local governments in the Yogyakarta Special Region (YSR) should fully support the existence of Tourism Awareness Group (POKDARWIS) or Community-based Tourism (CBT); (5) Tourist destination areas which are spread in the Yogyakarta Special Region (YSR) may follow the successful of Nglanggeran Village management, so that the sustainable tourism development in those tourist destination areas can be improved.

Kata Kunci : Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta; Kelompok Sadar Wisata; pariwisata berkelanjutan, Pemerintah Daerah/sustainable tourism; Yogyakarta Special Region; local governments; tourism awareness group