0 Yogyakarta urged to focus on developing village tourism

The Yogyakarta provincial administration is not paying serious attention to developing the potential of rural or village tourism — that could improve people’s well being as well as preserve local traditional values — in its bid to boost the tourism sector, says an academic. “I suppose that in the Provincial Tourism Development master plan, the provincial administration has not given its full attention to rural or village tourism,” said Gadjah Mada University’s (UGM) anthropology school dean Heddy Shri Ahimsa Putra in a discussion at UGM’s Tourism Studies Center on Monday. 

Heddy said that development in the tourism industry in Yogyakarta was based on the typology by anthropologist Robert Redcliff, which divided the culture into two traditions — ageng (great) traditions and alit (little) traditions. The ageng tradition comprises customs that take place in Yogyakarta Palace and Puro Pakualaman Palace, while the alit tradition involves the cultural life of village communities. “The tourism industry in Yogyakarta still focuses on culture originating from the ageng tradition, whereas in fact, in Yogyakarta the biggest tourism potential comes from the alit tradition,” he said. 

Statistics show that Yogyakarta is home to 438 villages. The Yogyakarta Tourism Office has recorded that of the 127 tourism villages, only 65 of them are ready to be “sold”. The majority of tourism villages are found in Sleman regency, numbering 33 tourism villages. In 2012, only 137,281 people visited the tourism villages in Sleman and 41,106 people visited those in Kulonprogo regency. Heddy said evidence that the Yogyakarta provincial administration was not yet serious about developing the potential of alit traditional areas could be seen with the lack of a comprehensive map on the various potentials the villages could offer, besides the lack of attention from the government to earnestly educate the community to develop the villages in a sustainable way. 

Besides raising people’s income, the villages can also protect their own cultural values, as tourists visit to observe local culture. “The development of tourism villages is a right step in the modernization strategy because it does not contradict modern values [such as sanitation, public order and commercialization] with traditional values,” said Heddy. UGM Tourism Studies Center head Janianton Damanik said the tourism policy in Yogyakarta remained indecisive, so the alit cultural attraction had been abandoned. Separately, Yogyakarta Tourism Office head Amiarsi Harwani said the provincial administration still lacked a grand design for tourism village development. 

Data related to tourism development also lacked organization. Amiarsi added that the meeting, incentive, conference and event (MICE) approach was still focused on making Yogyakarta a place where meetings and conferences could be held, which would then drive the tourism industry. “Every stakeholder related to village tourism is still working alone,” she said. Doto Yogantoro, the marketing manager at Pentingsari Tourism Village in Cangkringan, Sleman, said the Sleman regency administration had been made a strenuous effort to support village tourism development.

source : the jakarta post