Rethinking Sustainable Community-Based Tourism: A Villager’s Point of View and Case Study in Pampang Village, Indonesia

Abstract

Community-based tourism (CBT) considers one sustainable form of tourism to enhance tourists’ and local communities’ relationships. By investigating and studying the previous scientific production of the CBT field in general and, in particular, rural CBT, the researchers found that the local communities’ roles in shaping this type of tourism have been given great importance. This literature mainly focuses on rural CBT from the academic researcher’s perspective. This study aimed to understand the villager’s view on rural sustainable CBT in Pampang Village, Indonesia. In our research, we used the triangulation method based on three kinds of data: in-depth structured interviews, non-participant field observations, and quantitative sustainability aspects of the local attractions. The research results helped us design a model for the formation of sustainable rural CBT activities in Indonesia, which depends on formal and informal leader figures in the community instead of only the community’s solidarity, as much previous research has indicated.

1. Introduction

Community-based tourism (CBT), in general, is a type of tourism that focuses on enhancing the relationship between the local communities and the tourists [1]. The term “community-based tourism” itself is not new in the tourism field, but rather, it is based on an old idea that has existed for decades [2]. The main idea of this type of tourism goes back to the traditional concept of tourism itself. It is defined as the activities of people who move from one place to another for a temporary period to discover new things, exchanging cultures, and learning ways of life different from the usual in these people’s home place [3]. In the past, this concept has appeared in the choices and behaviors of visitors [4]. Instead of choosing the sizeable famous hotel chains at present, tourists used to deal with small and medium-sized enterprises and low-cost local accommodations that were committed to protecting the local environment [5]. Therefore, it can be said that, despite the CBT terminology, which is considered relatively new and modern for some people, it is an old concept of tourism that has been discussed and tested since antiquity.

Although many tourism forms are impacted by the relation between tourists and societies, such as ecotourism, homestay, eco-adventure tourism, and agrotourism, CBT comes at the forefront of these prominent terms at the academic society level and the local and governmental level [1,6].

CBT can be described as a tourism form that results directly from applying sustainability principles to tourism development [7]. Since the 1992 World Summit, which was the beginning of promoting the concept of sustainable development to affect the value of tourism, the CBT concept was one of three main developments in the tourism sector: natural resource conservation, tourism as a learning experience, and the importance of participation of local communities [8].

Sustainability is an essential part of the tourism business, including community-based tourism (CBT). Sustainable tourism aims to balance the economic, socio-cultural, and environmental dimensions in the tourism industry. Moreover, suitability indicates that the natural regions’ tourism experiences should be immersive tranquil experiences that encourage tourists to engage with the natural surroundings and with minimal impact [9].

Sometimes, many local governments face problems dealing with sustainability challenges because of the lack of knowledge and skills for implementing sustainability in practice [10]. As the United Nation of World Tourism Organization/UNWTO (2009) mentions, sustainable tourism is expected to make optimal use of natural and built environmental resources that constitute a crucial element in tourism development by maintaining essential ecological processes and conserving natural and human-made heritage as biodiversity [11].

In this context, CBT has been presented as a social or community planning approach to tourism [1]. One important thing to know is that CBT has a different concept from mass tourism; it has a mission to raise awareness among tourists and learn about local people’s daily lives [3]. The understanding of sustainability in the tourism aspect of CBT needs to be updated, given the increasing number of CBT-based businesses in rural areas. CBT plans are also used to develop various products that are ultimately marketed to visitors [12]. Sustainable tourism also means making a destination a livable residential environment in the future, while at the same time protecting natural resources and local customs and traditions [10].

Several parties are related to CBT activities concerning social capital and its importance as the primary resource to apply CBT business. They are the government, destination management organizations (DMOs), non-government organizations, regional and rural tourism organizations, communities, agencies associated with tourism development, and so forth [13]. All these entities have a significant role in organizing, managing, and developing CBT business.

For example, Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) are defined as any organization at any level that is responsible for the marketing of a named or identifiable tourism destination [14]. Along with DMOs, unique features, social networks, and previous knowledge of both policymakers and the indigenous or local villagers are pivotal for developing CBT business by promoting entrepreneurship awareness to invest in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) that are tourism-related in local villages [15]. It is also known that the local people’s reliance on the local government depends on how well the local government, divided into a district government and a central government, can coordinate their governing bodies to work side-by-side [15].

One of the CBT forms is rural CBT, which is considered to be the central-focused CBT concept in this research. Most rural tourism destinations make activities in the natural landscape part of the attraction [16]. In this context, CBT has been used to describe a broad range of different tourism models but usually refers to tourism that involves community participation. The aims are to generate benefits for local communities in the developing world by allowing tourists to visit these communities and learn about their culture and the local environment [8], particularly in rural areas.

In many rural areas, mostly rural tourism activities are formed as CBT activities [17]. The concept of organization in rural tourism development areas is now an exciting issue; thus, rural tourism is identified as a tool for rural revitalization [18]. Rural tourism is also related to ecotourism activities and has a significant role in developing those areas or regions as touristic attractions [19]. Recent studies revealed that even a single rural destination could increase and maintain the number of tourist arrivals [14]. One of the advantages of rural tourism is that it is based on local initiatives, local management, and local spin-offs rooted in the local scenery, and taps into the local culture [18]. For tourism activities to be described as rural tourism, it should reflect the characteristics that signify a rural area, including small settlements, low population densities, agrarian-based economies, and traditional societies [18].

Agrarian-based activities, village life, rural landscapes, and local culture tourism activities in rural areas consider the tourism industry operators’ attractive factors. The agricultural resources and the traditional rural landscape are the primary farming operations where tourists can appreciate the local scenery, see the local ecology, and try the local food. Moreover, whether the residents benefit from rural tourism and participating is an essential criterion for measuring rural CBT development [20]. One main issue in preserving rural community-based tourism is to ensure that local communities (in collaboration with all stakeholders) remain involved and have a crucial role in tourism destination management. The biggest benefit to remain in the local destination is the community itself [3].

Despite the fruitful issue of sustainable tourism in general and, in particular, CBT, it is vital to understand further the hosts’ attitudes toward tourism development and the factors influencing their attitudes [21]. Villagers’ points of view, as community members, in the CBT concept should be deeply understandable either by academics or tourism industry operators to discover new, more relevant, and up-to-date motivations for local communities to participate in CBT development. In other words, we can say that villagers’ opinions and thoughts are significant to note in CBT; they are considered to be the intangible aspect that can affect the whole tourism development outputs [22].

In Indonesia, CBT is an essential tool for achieving national sustainable tourism goals. There are 1302 rural community-based tourism (CBT) business entities in Indonesia, according to 2014 statistics; this number grew up to more than 1734 by 2018 and is expected to continue to grow [23]. Every Indonesian stakeholder (the government, community members, academics, investors, business operators, and visitors) seeks to achieve the sustainability principles of CBT. Of the 24.79 million poor people in Indonesia, 60% live in rural areas [24]. This means that rural communities that have carried out rural CBT business activities and sustainability should be understood. A growing deeper understanding of the villagers’ perspectives will enrich the knowledge that has been formulated from previous concepts, and will help to grow and maintain the sustainability of thousands of rural CBT businesses.

As abovementioned, this research paper will focus on presenting the community perspective of CBT at a local village in Indonesia, Pampang Village. The article started with an introduction in Section 1, which gives the overall background of CBT and its sustainability relationship with the local communities and villagers. A comprehensive literature review is introduced in Section 2 to highlight the significant research gap, which is the importance of the villagers’ points of view on the CBT concept. After that, the data collection and analytical method are explained in Section 3. Then, the results and discussion are presented, followed by the conclusion.

2. Literature Review

Previous researchers have indicated the importance of whole village communities’ roles in carrying out rural CBT activities. These previously published CBT articles’ findings showed that rural CBT sustainability could continue to be sustainable if only the entire community supports rural tourism activities. In 2013, Buultjens and Gale asserted that indigenous people are the main target for sustainable tourism businesses [25]. Reinforcing Dewi’s (2013) study, their research found that local communities’ involvement in rural tourism development and the formulation of tourism development is mandatory [26].

Lucchetti (2013) and Tolkach (2015) presented clear evidence of the importance of allocating a sufficient part of the tourism project fund to design plans for the participation of local communities in implementing the proposed tourism development plans [8,27]. The findings confirmed the importance of paying attention to local communities’ involvement, especially when discussing tourism projects’ financial resources. Emphasizing the importance of the “whole” community’s participation in CBT, which is represented by residents, a management team, community leaders, commercial business entities, and government parties, is highlighted by many researchers, such as Trirat (2014), Xu (2017), and Rindrasih (2018) [6,28,29].

On a similar note, Mayaka (2019) and Pramanik (2019), in their published work, highlighted the differences between theoretical CBT plans and the implementation of these plans. The results emphasized local communities’ generous contributions in implementing the planned CBT development schemes [1,7].

Although a considerable number of scientific articles discussed CBT through several different aspects, some of which were mentioned in the previous paragraphs, most of this scientific production discusses CBT from the point of view of academics and researchers, with an emphasis on the necessity of the local communities’ participation in CBT.

Conjointly, the villagers are not accustomed to varying views when they gather. Thus, when performing community-based research, a mixture of in-depth personal interviews and field observation, added to another type of data, was required to achieve the maximum possible benefit from this research and make it fruitful and impact the daily life of these local communities and villagers.

This paper focuses on the quest to understand sustainable tourism in rural tourism activities in Indonesia by concentrating on the local communities’ points of view. This paper also identifies the real actor(s) of rural sustainability CBT rather than the whole community, as described in previous literature findings (

Table 1. Summary of some rural sustainability CBT’s actors mentioned in the previous studies.

Researcher	Data	Finding
Mayaka, et.al [1]	In-depth interview	Community to community role
Manaf et al. [3]	In-depth interviews, observation, and documents review	An internal group of community
Junaid et al. [30]	Field survey	Community and other stakeholders
Dewi, et.al [26]	Literature study, in-depth interviews, and non-participant observation	Community and government
Lucchetti and Font [8]	Interviews, surveys, and non-participant observation	Community and commercial business entity
Rindrasih [6]	Observations and in-depth interviews	Community and local government
Pramanik et al. [7]	Questionnaire	Collective community
Vitasurya [31]	Observation, in-depth interview, group discussion	Local community
Buultjens and Gale [25]	Semi-structured, in-depth interviews	Indigenous people

).

Finally, we can say that although tourism experts and academics bring main concepts and ideas to destinations through CBT projects, these ideas may not be useful if there is no proper support or positive feedback from the relevant stakeholders in the local communities [30]. Identifying the main actors of CBT in rural societies rather than studying the whole community perspective is essential and will enhance the CBT field’s academic outputs.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Case Study

This research was conducted in Pampang Village, Indonesia. Pampang Village is located in the Paliyan sub-district, Gunungkidul Regency, Yogyakarta Special Region province, Java Island, Republic of Indonesia (Figure 1). Yogyakarta Special Region, also known as Jogja, is the second leading famous tourism destination in Indonesia after Bali Island.

The research team selected Pampang Village in Indonesia as a case study because it is a village that just recently established CBT village activities. Before 2016, the local population was unfamiliar with environmentally sustainable and tourism-related practices. There has been a paradigm change in the community regarding nature and cultural conservation, emphasizing tourism activities to date since they were exposed to ecotourism and rural tourism. Additionally, in the same year (2016), Pampang Village began to apply a developed strategy based on an initiative of three indigenous community members in Pampang village, namely Iswandi as the Head of Village, Rohmat as the chief of the Karang Taruna local youth organization, and Yitno Purwoko as the academic (one of the authors). The initial step in developing tourism in this village was identifying and inventorying potential tourism assets by youth organizations in collaboration with village communities [32]. The initiative had many steps and events magnifying the local community and the stakeholders’ participation roles in the village’s CBT process.

3.2. Data Collection

In general, many concepts can be used to understand and study rural CBT. One of these concepts is “Marketability, Sustainability, Participatory, Disaster Mitigation Management (MSPDM)”, which was developed by Priatmoko et al. in 2019. This research will focus on only one parameter of this concept: Sustainability (S) [16,17,33,34].

The dataset used in this research was based on three primary sources: in-depth interviews, non-participant observation, and quantifying the score of attractions based on sustainability aspects.

Firstly, in-depth, semi-structured, and open-ended scripted interviews were conducted from 10 November to 10 December 2020, in Pampang Village, Indonesia, to gather qualitative information. The talks were audio-recorded and transcribed. The transcribed responses were compiled into a single file, read, and re-read to identify and code critical themes, then sorted using NVivo version 1.3. NVivo is a qualitative data analysis (QDA) programming software package developed by the QSR International Company that allows qualitative researchers to arrange, interpret, and find insights into unstructured or qualitative data, such as interviews and open-ended survey responses [35,36].

However, we carefully conducted personal interviews in certain situations and involving the local interviewer to provide richer data and more significant insights into phenomena than the questionnaires could. It was also used to reduce the skewness of studying recreational ecosystem services by capturing diverse viewpoints [37]. It is also worth mentioning that the researchers avoided conducting group discussions and interviews to make the collecting data process more smooth and efficient.

Regarding the interview participants’ selection process, the researchers used some purposive sampling criteria. The participants were involved before in tourism village management, not engaged as management, were gender-balanced (an equal number of male and female participants), and described as “movers”. Movers are people whose households were initially low-income but moved out of poverty and have several characteristics: be of productive age (31–50 years old), have a formal education background (primary and secondary levels), have skills, and have relatively good health. From the perspective of social and political capacities, movers have social networks (family, neighbors, and community figures) that are broader and beneficial and have relatively higher social participation rates, especially in various socio-political activities or in various formal organizations at community levels.

Secondly, the field observation collected data using the non-participant observation model. Non-participant observation requires observing without deliberately participating participants [38]. By joining the group or social structure involved, this choice explains a phenomenon while remaining separate from the studied events [38,39]. The results of observations by observers are reported in the form of descriptions and photographic documentation.

Thirdly, for quantitative data of the attraction’s score, we used MSPDM’s Sustainability (S) analysis (

Table 2. Marketability, Sustainability, Participatory, Disaster Mitigation Management (MSPDM)’s Sustainability (S) Parameters and Indicators.

Parameter	Detail	Score and Indicator
		1	2	3	4	5
A (Physical development approach)	The use of land for physical development	No regulation of land use	Available arrangement of land use but not obeyed	Agreements and restrictions on physical development begin to be obeyed	Public land use regulation is followed and open space is expanded rather than physical development	The available land-use rule is observed; willingness to revision nature-friendly development
B (Visitor’s approach)	Number of visitors to the various attractions of the carrying capacity	No visitor path scenario, and visitors only understand a particular point of attraction	No visitor path scenario for the flow of visitors and congestion or desolation occurs at specific points	Available visitor path for a variety of topics of interest but no mechanism for distributing the number of visitors	Open visitor path for a variety of points of attraction and is a tool for spreading the number of visitors	Available visitor path for a variety of points of interest and the number of visitors is dispersed to the carrying capacity of each point
C (Natural resources use approach)	Supply capability and durability of resources for the needs of tourists in various tourism related activities	No regulation on the use of local resources	Limitation on the use of local resources but are not obeyed	Arrangements and restrictions of resources obeyed	Law on the use of resources tends to renew its capacity	Regulation on the use of resources is obeyed; willingness to contribute to the renewal function of resources
D (Local community’s response)	Reaction and action of the local community on tourism activities in the village/region	Majority of local people reject tourism activities in their area	The majority of local people are not interested in engaging in the activities of tourism	The majority of local people want to be involved in tourism activities	Communities make organizations regulate the role of tourism activity	The organization is created by the community connected with various stakeholders
E (Visitor’s response)	The intended and typical visitor	Tourism objects/attractions are still desolate	Visited by individual travelers only; no groups	Group visitors begin to come; at least, family visitors	Already marketed by tourism business entities	Listed as a must-visit for tourists
F (Government’s response)	Reaction and action of the government in the development area	No attention from the government	Listed in the development planning agenda	Get budget allocations from local government development planning	Involves a wide range of stakeholders in the development of the region	The provincial or national government makes plans and budget allocations

Source: [16,17,33,34] edited, 2020.

) to get the sustainability phenomenon quantitative picture and make it easier for observers, researchers, and readers to visualize the situation in Pampang Village. The contexts of the Sustainability (S) aspect in terms of rural CBT are the physical development approach, the visitors’ approach, the natural use approach, the local community’s response, the visitor’s response, and the government’s response.

3.3. Data Analysis Method

The triangulation method was used to collaborate with the data. All three previously mentioned kinds of data—in-depth interviews, non-participant observation, and quantitative sustainability score of attractions—were triangulated and confirmed each other. A triangulation study incorporates quantitative and qualitative data alongside a literature review to clarify the difference between ideals and facts. Studies that use triangulation may include two or more data collection sets using the same methodology to add richness and depth to a research inquiry and explain different aspects of the phenomenon of interest [40,41]. The collected data were triangulated through the triangulation process, then processed to get conclusions and create modeling (Figure 2).

4. Results and Discussion

In general, tourist villages in Yogyakarta have a rural agrarian culture character. Although other attraction themes distinguish between marketing communications, the central theme’s activity is related to agricultural life. Pampang Village tourism, although having agricultural pieces, also has several attractions and services that are claimed to be the value of determination, namely the Bendowo rest area and garden, silver craft, agricultural tourism and education, a herbal medicine course, traditional accommodation and meals, a camping ground, and a waste bank management course. Observations made using the Sustainability (S) parameters is the first step in the research methodology to quantify the attraction score, as shown in Table 2.

These suitability parameters were presented according to a scale of values, where the highest score for the assessment is 5 (Advanced), and the lowest is 1 (Embryo). The letters A, B, C, D, E, and F represent the assessment parameters and were applied to the Sustainability score table, as shown in

Table 3. Values Scale and Categories.

Scales	Category
1.00–1.99	Embryo
2.00–2.99	Pioneer
3.00–3.99	Growing
4.00–5.00	Advanced

Source: [16,17,33,34] edited, 2020.

.

By using the MSPDM’s Sustainability Parameters and Indicators (Table 2), the following attraction assessments and conditions obtained are shown in

Table 4. Pampang Village Sustainability scores (attractions’ scores).

Attraction Assessed	Parameter
	A	B	C	D	E	F	$\overline{\mathit{x}}$ Score per attraction
	Score per parameter
Bendowo Rest Area & Garden	4	4	3	5	3	5	4.00
Silver Craft	3	4	3	5	3	5	3.83
Agricultural tourism and education	4	3	3	4	3	3	3.33
Herbal medicine course	3	4	4	5	3	2	3.50
Accommodation and meals	3	4	3	4	3	2	3.17
Camping ground	3	4	3	3	3	3	3.17
Waste bank management course	3	3	3	4	3	3	3.17
$\overline{x}$ Total Score							3.45

Source: Researcher, 2020.

, below. Based on the $\overline{x}$, the total score, which is 3.45, Pampang Village tourism is in the “Growing” category in terms of the Sustainability Index. These scores will also be used as a cross-check parameter tool and triangulated with the interview and field observatory data.

Regarding the concept of sustainable tourism, we found that facts from residents that support the local community and local village government are what makes sustainable values run as productive tourism business activities. According to Pampang Village residents, their perception of sustainable tourism development in their particular place is crucial for their attitudes and behaviors. Tourism activity issues indicate that tourism is developing foundations [21]. Strong community ties and connectedness between residents and the village government are the keys and requirements for sustainability, and it is reflected in an excerpt from the statement below:

“Tourism activities supported by the initiation of friends, villagers, will continue to be sustainable to build a tourism village.”

—Participant 1, male, tourism village organization member, age 44, interviewed November 2020.

In the village community, the village headman’s approval and willingness are the first keys to running sustainable tourism activities. This is because the village headman’s role and intention are dominant, especially in providing strong spiritual support to its field actors, in this case, the tourism village manager and the team members. One thing that should not be missed here is that the strategic leadership required for directing and managing tourism and implementing economic innovation has to be placed in more efficient hands [42]. Residents not involved in the village’s tourism management also saw the village head’s approval as a necessary official permit for all tourism village activities. In addition to the village official government (the village head) role, rural tourism activities can also run continuously with informal leaders’ presence. These public figures can be men or women, and in certain situations, women’s roles in the village are quite vital. A tourism village’s sustainability is related to several parties who do not have any position in the village community’s management structure. This expression can be seen in the following statement:

“In the past, before the village head passes away, the residents were always eager to carry out activities because he assisted the community, for example, cleaning the garden area. However, after the village head’s decease, the women had to ask several other women or me if the tourism village management needed the villager’s participation continuously”.

—Participant 2, female, community member, age 43, interviewed in December 2020.

Other residents expressed the same opinion that the role of the village government through to the village head was considered vital:

“Yes, I see the current situation is less enthusiastic because since the village chief passed away, the cohesiveness of the residents (related to the tourism village program) has decreased, and they walk separately with their respective products. It takes continuous activities, procurement of bathrooms, prayer rooms so that promotions are more convincing and not disappointing visitors. Still need help from the village government.”

—Participant 3, female, community member, age 37, interviewed December 2020.

Another fact found can be confirmed from the interviews that the early introduction of the sustainable tourism concept was from academics. Furthermore, its idea became a trigger for the collective awareness of sustainable tourism’s positive values represented by existing activities, potential activities, and attractions. For example, in Pampang village, before village tourism activities, the community had carried out activities to collect plastic and paper waste for sale instead of being burned. In the culinary sector, people are accustomed to using various leaves to wrap food. Usually, they use banana leaves and teak (Tectona grandis sp.) leaves. They also use dry twigs and bamboos for cooking specific menus that require a slow cooking system. Slow cooking is considered healthier and demonstrates their passion and care in their role as providers or as hosts [43,44]. The trend of the concept of sustainable tourism is that the identity and characteristics of a tourist village likely tend to echo their way of life. This echo’s most visible activity is how they reinvented the river prawns steamed in coconut milk and wrapped in banana leaves. The shrimp are caught from rivers using simple tools without damaging the river vegetation or killing river biota massively. The food made from local river prawns is called “Botok Urang” and has even become a business with sustained demand for the villagers who sell it. This is revealed by the following statement:

“Before (era) of tourism village, I opened a usual, like others, culinary business but then closed because of low demand. Then I find a special signature menu of dishes utilizing the local river prawns as our traditional menu from the (idea of) tourism village thematic and continued until now with good market demand.”

—Participant 4, female, community member, age 44, interviewed December 2020

It is predicted this can prolong a culture’s life if a norm or way of life becomes a collective consciousness. In rural tourism activities, which are known to become a local tourism business, indigenous businesses’ success is determined by several factors: the protection of cultural heritage for future generations and the significant contribution to land management through cultural activities, and much less, by profit [25]. This cultural pride encourages the strengthening of identity about the community’s origins, ancestors, home, language, cultural traditions, arts and crafts, and development [45]. This pride may also appear as an antithesis of resistance because of the old stigma that stated that the residents of Pampang and its surroundings used to work as cheap laborers or daily wage-laborers in other cities. Several of the residents’ daily activities related to traditional cooking and culinary activities, which they tend to preserve, can be seen in Figure 3 below.

Figure 3a shows residents still using wooden branches and dry bamboo from the forest to cook certain types of meals that require slow-cooking fire. However, in general, people cook using liquid petroleum gas for daily basis meals. Figure 3b shows the result of a dish called “Lemper,” which is rice filled with minced chicken with banana leaf wrappers. Figure 3c shows a community meeting that begins with a meal together with a meal that uses teak leaves as plates. For a long time, these activities had existed even before the concept of sustainable tourism and rural tourism was established in Pampang Village.

Another pre-existing activity is protecting the river ecosystem that flows in Pampang Village. Community groups carry out activities to keep the river clean and educate the public not to catch fish or prawns with chemicals or electric stunning. The overall purpose is that tourism should contribute to rural areas’ development and be sustainable [20]. On the other hand, tourism village business actors also generally should pay attention to their surroundings and environment [46] and towards activities known as sustainable tourism. Sustainable tourism focuses on strengthening the link between socio-economic concerns and environmental protection by considering both the region’s socio-economic and ecological carrying capacity [47].

Another critical issue that should be considered when applying the CBT approach in Pampang Village is the birds’ presence. The birds had disappeared and were rarely seen due to being shot or captured by residents to be sold. After the declaration of ecotourism as the starting point for the Pampang tourism village’s activities, now people are ashamed to shoot and catch birds. The result is that now in Pampang, the birds are returning and becoming part of the ecosystem and attraction.

“Now, birds are everywhere. We can enjoy it on the banks of this river very beautifully. In the past, birds were hard to see; maybe they were extinct because people were still not aware of shooting them, and capturing them, and then it becomes a livelihood, catching them for money so that after a while, the birds are vanishing. After all, they are hunted day and night.”

—Participant 5, male, river community care member, age 44, interviewed November 2020.

The development of the idea that a tourist village has also made some people re-explore the burden of the traditional way of life is highly recommended in the CBT concept. Ways of life can be said, as local wisdom, are the positive behaviors of man when interacting with nature and its local surroundings. The ways of life are originated from their value of religious customs, advice of the ancestors, or its culture, naturally built within a community to adapt to its local surroundings [31]. These initiatives need to be compatible with villagers’ cultural values, and practices can increase their capacity, building initiative understanding [25]. Furthermore, a small part of the strengthening way of life and environmental awareness that appears on the surface is used by the residents as part of the tourist attractions.

As a part of the CBT process and to gain a deeper understanding from the villagers, important issues were identified that need to be addressed. These include, but are not limited to, sustainable tourism meaning, activities that support sustainable tourism, business capacity and plans, expectations from tourism activities, and the role and impression regarding rural CBT.

Table 5. Most frequent issues indicating rural sustainable CBT from villagers’ perspectives.

Sustainable Tourism Meaning

-Setting the mindset to become rural tourism actors

-Community group awareness and empowerment

Activities That Support Sustainable Tourism

-Advancing tourist attractions and business opportunities for the needs of tourists

-Culinary businesses and river-based traditional cuisine

-Utilizing the local environment assets as an ecotourism thematic village

Business Capacity and Plans

-Adding facilities and infrastructure to provide a better experience for the visitor

-Culinary business and traditional merchandise improvement

Expectations From Tourism Activities

-Additional employment opportunities for women in the village

-Increase the standard of living

Role and Impression Regarding Rural CBT

-The village head provides cohesiveness of the residents and his role

-Tourism village managers, informal group leaders, responsibilities, and their pride

summarizes the most critical overall issues, which repeatedly emerged across interview sessions identified through the individual answers.

The interview’s emphasis shows things that have emerged from tourism activities in rural areas with conditions that have reached the “Growing” category. There may be different opinions from the villagers in tourism villages’ responses in other categories (Embryo, Pioneer, or Advanced). From the most frequent issues, it appears that the concept of sustainability must have been introduced first, in Pampang Village, by academics. Identification and introduction to the idea of sustainability built community awareness. Collective awareness from the initial concept of sustainable tourism led to creative ideas using the village’s assets to create activities that support sustainable tourism.

Another finding in the most frequent issue in the interviews is that women also plan for a business related to tourism villages, namely the culinary industry. They have an almost decisive role as suppliers of providing food and drink to visitors. In other words, women have the opportunity to ask for roles in tourism village business activities.

In maintaining the social and environmental sustainability of tourism village activities, the village head’s role becomes central. However, a supporting role is needed to keep the rhythm so that it remains sustainable, namely tourism village managers and informal leaders. These informal leaders do not always have positions in village government organizations or tourism village organizations, but they influence small groups in the village community.

From the whole process of this research, determining the concept, data collection, and data analysis, we can deliver the process and its components, as shown in Figure 4 below.

The presence of the sustainable CBT concept began with the introduction of a concept adapted to local conditions. They got support from the local government leader (village head) and then persevered and maintained it with informal leaders and team management activities. Furthermore, it created the value of strengthening life and some superficial parts of the entity used as tourism attractions. We present a model for forming sustainable rural CBT activities from the data analysis obtained in Figure 5.

5. Conclusions

From the description above, it can be said that the concept of sustainable tourism from the villagers’ points of view is a formula that makes people return to their pride and strengthen their past lifestyle and nexus with many socio-economic phenomena. Participation and connectivity are two variables that must be taken into account at the same time. As a result, a connection is required for members to participate [48]. This way of life already existed and then was likely to resurrect again among the villagers’ collective awareness. In the context of tourism development, local participation is essential, not only to the labor in this sector and complementary industries but also to encourage more tourist arrivals through tourism’s attitudes and culture [49]. Thus, in this case, it was necessary to rethink sustainable tourism from the direct actors, who are the villagers, and know whether it corresponds with people’s values.

The concept of sustainability in a growing rural community-based tourism study needs to be gradually explored and rethought because it involves many parties. The search for new information from the villagers; views provides new meaning that will enrich sustainable tourism development plans in the present and the future. It was discovered that academics’ education and training positively impacted corporate participants and organizational creativity attitudes [48]. The concept introduced by academics turned out to be a trigger for searching for the villagers’ identities who now live in the modern era.

From these findings, it is also known that the sustainability of tourism villages depends on formal and informal leader figures in the community instead of only the community’s collective solidarity, as many previous kinds of research mentioned. The role of policymakers and strategic leaderships [15,42], as shown by the head and informal leaders in the Pampang Village CBT area, is to maintain tourism-focused sustainable management as significant. A quality practice should develop a long-term perspective into a life cycle strategy to sustainably grow and profit, while also achieving social, environmental, and economic results, with leadership being one of the most important competencies in the evolving quality paradigm [50].

Residents’ activities contribute to the development of rural areas and vice versa [20]. Thus, it has pushed increasingly positive attitudes and behaviors towards a particular local culture [21] and has become a typical phenomenon in Pampang village, where its residents support CBT activities. Additionally, a greater awareness of helping their country adjust to the changes in tourism business management is related. The initial concepts about rural tourism introduced to Pampang villagers by academics also continued and were adapted by residents to align with cultural values and practices [25]. Social resources, leadership, and adaptation to social and ecological background factors can help achieve social and environmental sustainability [51]. Knowing this perspective will provide insight when encouraging future maintenance of tourism sustainability strategies of the rural CBT that has been established in many places in Indonesia.

6. Limitations and Future Work

This research relied on the researchers’ interpretations based on rural tourism data in Pampang Village, Yogyakarta. In the future, multiple case studies and rural CBT categories can be used to examine the applicability of the model framework in more locations that have rural CBT activities. By trying to find out the villagers’ perspectives on CBT in many other places, we can model a more reliable approach in knowing the phenomenon of rural CBT generally. Furthermore, it would yield brighter insights as to the usefulness of the new understanding in the decision-making process about sustainable tourism in rural CBT areas.