From Nature Tourism to Ecotourism: Assessing the Ecotourism Principles Fulfillment of Tourism Natural Areas in Bangka Belitung

Abstract

Bangka Belitung is being transformed into a tourism destination area, relying on nature tourism. But unfortunately, the development of nature tourism does not include the development of ecotourism, even though these two things are interrelated. Nature tourism which is a mainstay of the tourism sector provides a very wide opportunity to strengthen ecotourism as part of the environmental movement in Bangka Belitung. This research aims to find out how the fulfillment of the ecotourism principles of tourism natural areas in Bangka Belitung Islands Province, Indonesia, and identifying unique things related to the application of these principles. Through quantitative research methods with a survey approach that is strengthened by field observations, this research found that assessed from 5 interval categories of the ecotourism principles fulfillment, 58% of the tourism areas in Bangka Belitung were included in the category of fulfilled of the ecotourism principles and 42% were in the strongly fulfilled category of the ecotourism principles. The research also found that although the application of each principle was met, there were unique and interesting notes on each principle.

Ecotourism in Indonesia: Local Community Involvement and The Affecting Factors

“…The involvement included several activities such as planning the development of local areas into ecotourism destinations (Hijriati & Mardiana, 2014), discussing customary or local regulations regarding to conservation efforts for ecotourism areas (Asriyani & Verheijen, 2020), discussing the conservation methods or strategies (Asriyani & Verheijen, 2020;Ayuningtyas & Dharmawan, 2011;Harahab & Setiawan, 2017;Hijriati & Mardiana, 2014;Ibrahim et al, 2019;Muaz et al, 2017;Ridlwan et al, 2017), discussing the current ecotourism problems (Ayuningtyas & Dharmawan, 2011;Hijriati & Mardiana, 2014;Ibrahim et al, 2019;Ridlwan et al, 2017), finding out people's responses or perceptions regarding to the perceived benefits of ecotourism (Hijriati & Mardiana, 2014;Ibrahim et al, 2019;Ridlwan et al, 2017), establishing visiting rules or policies for tourists (Harahab & Setiawan, 2017;Hijriati & Mardiana, 2014;Ibrahim et al, 2019;Muaz et al, 2017), and determining who would be involved in the development of ecotourism (Ayuningtyas & Dharmawan, 2011;Nuraini et al, 2019). The form of local community involvement at the planning level was only discussed in nine out of the 29 articles.…”

“…Reforestation of the ecotourism area supported the conservation efforts to support ecotourism management (Harahab & Setiawan, 2017;Hijriati & Mardiana, 2014;Wahdaniar et al, 2019;Wulandari & Sumarti, 2011). The local community also participated in funding the ecotourism development, and sources of funding could come from cooperatives (Ibrahim et al, 2019), a group of residents (Harahab & Setiawan, 2017), local community, and local village government (Wulandari & Sumarti, 2011). As much as 25% of development funds came from the local community, and the rest were from the village government.…”

“…As much as 25% of development funds came from the local community, and the rest were from the village government. In addition, the local community also contributed to the development and maintenance of the public infrastructure such as irrigation and ecotourism facilities, cleaning and maintaining the ecotourism area, and storing and maintaining the cultural heritage objects (Hijriati & Mardiana, 2014;Ibrahim et al, 2019;Nuraini et al, 2019). The local community involvement type at the implementation level was discussed in nine of the 29 articles reviewed in this study.…”

“…The limited number of trained human resources, a legal system that did not support the participatory practices, the uncooperative attitude of professionals, and the dominance of the local elite became the limitations to the local community involvement from a structural perspective. The local community involvement in ecotourism management in Indonesia was often hampered by their low capacity (Darmawan & Putradi, 2010;Ginting et al, 2010;Ibrahim et al, 2019;Muaz et al, 2017;Ridlwan et al, 2017;Wildan et al, 2016;Wulandari & Sumarti, 2011). Thus, ecotourism management was delegated to external parties.…”

“…Hence, the main goal of ecotourism as a support for conservation efforts and local economic improvement becomes difficult to achieve. It happens due to the lack of understanding of the concept of ecotourism (Tiga et al, 2019a(Tiga et al, , 2019b as well as poor supervision and role of government in developing the tourist area to a better condition -which can be seen from the high dominance of the private sector involvement in ecotourism management (Darmawan & Putradi, 2010;Ibrahim et al, 2019;Wildan et al, 2016). Ecotourism management often passes up community participation as an important stakeholder.…”