Tourism Impacts in Indonesia

The concepts of social entrepreneurship and sustainability have positively influenced
tourism by aligning the preservation of culture and environment with economic growth. For the
residents of Bali, sustainable tourism has seen them provide products and services that meet the
leisure needs of tourists while at the same time generating profits that go back to community
development projects. Sustainable tourism concerns itself with using profits or economic gains
from tourism to preserve the cultural, social, natural and built environments that attract tourists
(Carnaffan, 2015). These profits and projects have ended up improving the quality of life among
Bali residents. An example of this is how Bali has introduced volunteer tourism to support
sustainability.
By using volunteer tourism to encourage sustainability, Bali has attracted tourists who
value sociocultural heritage and are motivated to fight threats like climate change. People
visiting Bali as volunteer tourists are paired with local groups where they use their resources and
skills to support community projects that conserve tourist attraction sites like wildlife, beaches,
forests, and sociocultural heritage (McGehee, 2014). To better understand this, one can use the
example of an indigenous community in Bali. Their culture attracts tourists; thus, it is mutually
beneficial for the tourists and the community to preserve this culture (Carnaffan, 2015). In other
words, tourists have an incentive to support cultural preservation because the culture provides a
platform for experiencing leisure. If the community fails to preserve its culture, it will lose its
sociocultural identity, and it will not attract cultural tourists.
A recent threat facing tourism development is the destruction of forests that serve as
water catchment areas and provide habitat. In Tucson, the destruction of forests will affect water
sustainability. There are lodges in forests that house medical tourists investigating the medicinal

TOURISM IMPACTS IN INDONESIA 3
value of different trees. Therefore, destroying forests or water sources will end up eliminating the
incentive for medical tourism in forested areas. Still, some cultural groups rely on forests for
habitat and religious rites as well as food. Destructive activities that impact water sustainability
will end up disrupting the cultural life of communities that rely on natural resources for food and
sacred practices.
Drawing on the changes that have happened in volunteer tourism, it is expected that
communities will become more involved in sustainability. Currently, volunteer tourism is
arranged either by local communities or entrepreneurial tour operators (Van Tonder et al., 2017).
The tour operators are profit-driven, but they have been losing their power to communities that
have started organizing volunteer tourism projects. Communities have been forming out
management firms to compete with private tour operators. Over time, it is expected that
communities will become more involved in arranging volunteer tourism activities, thus reducing
the commodification of tourism. Another expected change is that communities will lobby for
more power in ecological conservation.
Along with ethics, the ESG (environmental, social governance) framework, which is
increasingly becoming crucial in business operations, holds the key to mitigating risks facing the
tourism industry (ESG Foundation, 2021). But these concepts though applicable in tourism, are a
bit hard to implement and monitor (Saarinen, 2014). Notably, the tourism industry is highly
fragmented, which makes it difficult to monitor sustainability (ESG Foundation, 2021). Within
tourism, there are sectors like airline business and hospitality. Further, most tourist businesses
tend to be small or medium enterprises; thus, it is hard to monitor their compliance with the ESG
framework. Nonetheless, it is possible for Bali’s tourism operators to commit themselves to
sustainability through efforts like ecological and sociocultural heritage conservation.

TOURISM IMPACTS IN INDONESIA 4
Drawing on Covid-19’s disruption of business continuity, the Indonesian tourism sector
and the global tourism industry have suffered significant losses (ESG Foundation, 2021).
Transportation and hospitality industries have scaled down, thus reducing the volume of tourists
as well as the profitability of the entire tourism sector. It is estimated that tourism lost around
$1.3 trillion because of Covid-19 restrictions. Based on this, it might be challenging to control all
risks facing the tourism industry in Indonesia. Altogether, a collaborative approach between
governments and the provision of vaccines will go a long way in restoring the economic
vibrancy of Indonesia’s tourism.

TOURISM IMPACTS IN INDONESIA 5

References

Carnaffan, J. (2015). Authenticity and sustainability in responsible tourism. In Oxford Research
Encyclopedia of Politics.
ESG Foundation. (2021). Missing ESG reports: The travel and tourism sector.
https://esgfoundation.org/missing-esg-reports-the-travel-and-tourism-sector
McGehee, N. G. (2014). Volunteer tourism: Evolution, issues and futures. Journal of Sustainable
Tourism, 22(6), 847-854.
Saarinen, J. (2014). Critical sustainability: Setting the limits to growth and responsibility in
tourism. Sustainability, 6(1), 1-17.
Van Tonder, S. M., Hoogendoorn, G., & Block, E. (2017). Conservation volunteer tourism in the
Hartbeespoort region, South Africa: an exploratory study. African Journal of Hospitality,
Tourism and Leisure, 6(1), 1-13.