The Social Resilience in Community-Based Tourism (CBT) Towards the Covid-19

Abstract

The outbreak of Covid-19 decreases the number of tourists. Therefore, the community creates some innovative ways to attract tourists and survive during a difficult time. This study aims to analyze the community's capacities to encounter the pandemic situation using social resilience perspective. In a case study, this paper describes the role of the community (comprising tour guides, the batik enterprise, batik makers, and hospitality business) in sustaining the cultural tourism in Lasem District, Rembang Regency, Central Java Province, Indonesia. Qualitative approach is used in this study. Using social resilience theory, this study found that the community has three capacities: coping, adaptive, and transformative capacity. In addition, social resilience in the Lasem community could be seen from their creativity in sustaining their cultural tourism, such as (1) creating virtual tourism as a new way to enjoy tourist destinations; and (2) using technology innovation to sell MSME (micro small and medium enterprises) business products.