Tourism and Community Empowerment: Critical Insights from Indonesia

Abstract

Empowerment is a way of enhancing an individual’s or a community’s capacity to make choices and transform those choices into desired actions leading to desired outcomes. In a tourism context, scholars have noted that sustainable tourism development can be achieved if local communities are empowered, thus having some level of control over the development process, and if they share equitably in the benefits of tourism. However, research about community empowerment in the tourism context, particularly in developing countries, indicates that generally benefits are not shared equally within communities for a range of reasons. This study aims to explore how, and to what degree, tourism is empowering two rural communities in Indonesia. To answer these questions, this study employed a case study and mix-methods approach. The case studies chosen were two villages which have different approaches to planning and destination development (top-down – Perkebunan Bukit Lawang village and bottom-up – Namo Sialang village). The qualitative approach employed in-depth interviews and participatory observation to explore the context of the communities, and to understand existing community empowerment processes. The quantitative approach (a household survey) measured the extent to which residents of these rural villages experience empowerment at an individual and community level, and the factors influencing empowerment outcomes. The survey results show that the different planning processes in operation in these villages has not resulted in significant differences in empowerment on most measures. Surveys of Namo Sialang village, with a bottom-up approach to tourism planning, showed some evidence of greater empowerment across all dimensions (economic, psychological, social and political), but these differences were not as substantial as might be expected. While this community has significant control over tourism development in their village, and there was some evidence of an enhancement of a sense of agency, collectivity, and self-awareness, those processes occurred only in certain community groups, not in the community as a whole. In essence, this study suggests that expecting community empowerment – a western concept – in and through tourism development may not be entirely appropriate in this context. This may be because the concept does not take enough account of cultural factors and issues arising from political and geographical peripherality in the delivery of empowerment outcomes through tourism. Therefore, the community empowerment concept may need further assessment or refinement for application in the context of rural Indonesia, and developing countries more generally.