Developing Tanjung Kelayang as a new Bali: an analysis of sustainable tourism policy and implementation

Abstract

Indonesia has seen the success of Bali as the most prominent tourism destination in the country. Therefore, the initiative to deploy the benefits of tourism development throughout several regions of Indonesia is known as the “10 New Bali’s”. Nevertheless, it is still questionable whether Bali is an example of sustainable tourism or not. In developing the “10 New Bali’s”, the Indonesian government is aiming at increasing the number of tourists rather than at achieving the goal of sustainable tourism destination development.

One of the destinations designated under this initiative is Tanjung Kelayang in Belitung Island, and therefore it is selected as a case in this study. After 6 years of Tanjung Kelayang being designated as a New Bali, there has been little assistance from the national government on how the New Bali concept would be developed. Thus, this study becomes the baseline for Tanjung Kelayang’s readiness for future tourism destination development. It aims to analyze how Tanjung Kelayang destination development complies with the sustainable tourism criteria of GSTC-D V2 or Global Sustainable Tourism Council for Destination assessment (version 2).

This research was conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic situation from June until August 2021. The qualitative research approach was used with data collection through primary and secondary sources. The primary data collection was from field observation, semi-structured interviews, and in-depth interviews. The secondary data was from documentary reviews and analysis. Description analysis is used with GSTC-D V2 as a tool to obtain a description of the level of understanding, implementation, and compliance of the sustainable destination development standard.

The result showed that there are 7 criteria that received compliance with the requirement, i.e., support for the community; access for all; protection of cultural assets; intangible heritage; traditional access; visitor management and cultural sites; and light and noise pollutions. On the other hand, there are 21 criteria that did not receive compliance with the requirements, i.e. destination management and responsibilities; destination management strategy and action plan; monitoring and reporting; enterprises engagement and sustainability standard; resident engagement and feedback; visitor engagement; managing visitors volumes and activity; risk and crisis management; measuring the local contribution of tourism; preventing exploitation and discrimination; property and use rights; safety and security; site interpretation; protection of sensitive environments; visitor management at natural sites; wildlife interactions; species exploitation and animal welfare; water quality; wastewater management; greenhouse gases emission and climate change; and low impact transportation. Based on the description above, Tanjung Kelayang destination development needs further work in order to achieve sustainable tourism destination status.

To develop Tanjung Kelayang as a New Bali without copying-pasting the negative conditions and tourism impacts seen in Bali, commitment from the National and Local governments is needed. To achieve the best planning and implementation for a sustainable tourism destination, the skill-knowledge upgrade and improvement on sustainable destination development for all relevant stakeholders is the key, especially for the Local Official Tourism Government of Belitung as a spearhead of the Tanjung Kelayang sustainable destination development.