The Sustainable Tourism for Our Better Future:

Strategies and Challenges

Nowadays, there is a fact that natural resources is getting limited and
even starts to decrease. The major cause of it is related to the increasing
of population of human being from years to years which also affect the
increasing of needs for better living. People have a need to create such as
good or even more sophisticated civilization for this better living by socialeconomic growth, developing the rural area, and invention of modern
technology equipments which require a massive number of natural
resources to set those up. Then the biggest problem rise when peoples
use uncontrolled and exploit it to generate the daily needs and wants
without considering about the issue of sustainability itself. Further to the
2009 research about global consumption, Friends of The Earth Europe has
reported that:
The amount of natural resources extracted for the production of
goods and services is increasing steadily. At around 60 billion tons
each year, humans extract and use about 50% more than only 30
years ago. Almost half of global resource extraction takes place in
Asia, followed by North America with almost 20% and Europe and
Latin America with 13% each. Large variations exist in natural
resources extraction per capita: on average, an inhabitant of
Australia extracts around 10 times more resources than
inhabitants of Asia or Africa. Increasing resource extraction leads
to growing environmental and social problems, often worst in poor
countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
From the statement above it is obvious that every aspect of human life
requires a massive amount of natural resources to support not only the
primary necessity but also the secondary necessity, particularly in Asia
where a half of world population exists. Indonesia as one of country which
has enormous various natural resources spreads over in its islands making
it is famous with both cultural and marine tourism. When tourism sector
gives a huge contribution to monetary of the country, then it becomes a
such benchmark to compare only about the economic success of one
region or province to another without consider the negative results or bad
impacts from its development such as waste disposal, pollution or even
human misbehavior.
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The Sustainable Tourism for Our Better Future:

Strategies and Challenges

Sustainability is the best solution to develop and improve tourism for good
values of life, but how people can be aware to maintain the nature in the
good way is the issue. So based on that reason Julia Jnis (2013) made an
illustration of sustainable tourism as follows:

Figure 1. The Paradigm of Sustainable Tourism

By looking a figure from Julia Jnis, it can be concluded that the purpose of
tourism is not only the quantity effort but supposed to the quality such as
offering the physical and cultural experience. In the other words, it is a
process which meets the needs of tourists and host communities of
destination whilst protecting and enhancing needs in the future. It also
must integrate the social dimensions of productive organization and
environmental conservation together.
Indonesia has many nature and culture diversity as the object of tourism
for example village tourism, marine tourism, spiritual tourism, museum,
pilgrimage history, shopping, or even culinary tourism from Sabang to
Merauke. With tropical climate and 17.508 islands spread from Sumatra to
Papua and also 719 native languages, Indonesia has the strengths and
threats at same time to empower its sustainable tourism.
The main factor to determine a concept of sustainable can be succeed or
not is the quality of human resources. The reason is because human is the
one who responsible for all disasters and also the one who should find the
solutions to solve those by using the knowledge and skills. The figure

The Sustainable Tourism for Our Better Future:

Strategies and Challenges

below is describing all key parties who should be getting involved to

determine how a sustainable tourism occurs.
Figure 2. The Actors

From the figure above, it can be seen that government has a role as the
facilitator and the highest authority to establish policies for local
community, industry, tourist, and also cooperate with non government
organization. Then there is a local community who is affected by
development or tourism in their territory that may absorb the foreign
influences, some could be the negative influences, as the result of
interaction with the outsider. There is also another party who has
contribution which is called the tourism industry. This industry provides
both goods and service during the activity of tourism and gain economic
benefits by consuming much of resources including the natural resources.
The other important element is tourists perception and habit which can
determine how they react at their destination, to the local community and
environment. Then, the last is non government organizations who work
together with the government also with the local community to preserve
the culture and nature.
Based on that understanding, I put my personal analysis about how to
support and preserve tourism in my country by all parties as follows:
A good and communicative coordination among the government units
must be set up related to the sustainable issue. The environment issue
has not only local impacts but also global impacts therefore government
policies, such as direction of development and work programs, must
focus on that. Cooperation with non-government organizations related
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The Sustainable Tourism for Our Better Future:

Strategies and Challenges

to nature and society object is also needed to help the government on

monitoring and evaluation.
Non-government organization together with the local government
Introducing the local people or local community to the Green Economy
and Green Branding as their place is a tourism destination and tourist
generating

area

by

giving

the

educated

information

about

environmental management and tourism advantages for the local

community. So the local community, the tourist guide, and even the
tourism industry can have an integration and trustworthy information to
share with the tourist. The purpose of green tourism, in the other side
makes the tourists aware that they have helped reduce negative
impacts of using the natural resources and consume healthier products
continuously.
The sanctions based on the regulation and law must be executed by the
government to ensure that environment protected, it is considering
there are still many local community and even tourism industry
unaware about this issue.
Empowering the domestic plantation and housing considering the
economic growth in Indonesia is not equal in every area. By support the
local economic with small-medium business and creative products
made by the local community it will enable the community to be
independent and active. For example the water cultivation of Kerapu
fish will prevent the exploitation and contribute to the local economic,
or the good management of production forest will prevent the
unbalanced of the ecosystem.
There is a multiple living benefits when tourism sector is much related
to the local economic sector as the occupation for local people. The
characteristic of population is linked to geographic circumstances which
consists of coastal area, inland and mountain area. This characteristic
may support the local economic such as the tourism village which can
be the primary tourism by offering the rice fields view as well as the
source to supply the food needs. Also through agriculture, water
catchment areas will remain intact.

The Sustainable Tourism for Our Better Future:

Strategies and Challenges

Strengthening the youth community and the custom group thereby the
traditional values is still exists.
Manage the nearest accommodation with local community and tourism
objects in order to minimize the use of carbon emission or fuel. The
most important thing now is the accessibility instead of mobility.
Provide the recycling technology and better liquid and solid disposal
system.
Establish the maximum visitor in particular time in particular tourism
destinations due to the environmental recovery.
From some ideas above, it is obviously that every aspect either
government's programs and policies or any other activities must be
cooperated to achieve same main purposes in spite of some situation
cant be controlled as well as I analyzed and conclude. In the actual
condition there are some obstacles that may prevent the progress of
sustainable keep continuously.
The first, in fact, there is an economic gap which shows that highest level
of poverty in the country located in remote area such as western and
eastern of Indonesia compared to the central area. This cause lack of
education for that people, also insufficient of infrastructures is a huge
obstacle to deal with. Like what I said before, education is needed to raise
the environment awareness of society.
The second one is needs of green product is still low both from the
consumer and producer, it may be caused by the enormous number of
cost production as a result of inadequate of technology which will affect
the cost of goods and services sold. In addition, the lack of technology is
one of reasons why the recycling system still undeveloped.
The third is the numbers of tourism events will be held as the 2012-2014
tourism strategic plans to gain more monetary income. It means when
more of people come to the events, the usage of energy and waste
disposal will be increasing at the same time.

The Sustainable Tourism for Our Better Future:

Strategies and Challenges

The fourth, climate change and natural disasters as like eruptions in floods
that occurred in the period of 2 years in a row has resulted in some
damage to the tourist destination. This affects the interest of tourists to
have a visit.
The fifth is nowadays there is a challenge in sustainable development
which is the reliance of country on industry products such as coal, oil,
palm plantation, and natural gas therefore the focus to increase the level
of monetary income much more from those products. When concentrate
to gain the revenue, some major problems arise from dysfunctional
plantation such as the transformation of forest in Kalimantan to be palm
plantation which caused diminishing of water absorption. The damage of
dysfunctional plantation affects another damage to that island as the ecotourism area directly.
As the big picture, sustainable tourism is not about offering the green
label only but also more about an approach to involve every sector into
tourism activity. Then core issue of sustainable is not fulfillment of
economic needs or natural conservation only but more about how a
utilization is appropriate and ethically. This is the time of libertarian
extension concept should change to be conservation ethics concept. The
aphorism of environmentalist says "Earth is not a legacy from ancestor, it
is a responsibility to take care of from our future generation," therefore
with tourism sustainable we create a better life for our better future and
each other.