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
social-economic 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 people’s 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.

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 Jänis (2013) made an illustration of sustainable tourism as follows:

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 The Sustainable Tourism for Our Better Future: Strategies and Challenges

Figure 1. The Paradigm of Sustainable Tourism

By looking a figure from Julia Jänis, 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 below is describing all key parties who should be getting
involved to determine how a sustainable tourism occurs.

Figure 2. The Actors

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 The Sustainable Tourism for Our Better Future: Strategies and Challenges

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 tourist’s 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 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.

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 The Sustainable Tourism for Our Better Future: Strategies and Challenges

 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.
 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 can’t 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
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 The Sustainable Tourism for Our Better Future: Strategies and Challenges

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 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 eco-tourism 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.