Community Participation in Heritage Tourism for Gresik Resilience

Abstract

Preservation act of the heritage area in Gresik is still in draft, and many heritage objects are yet formally legalised. This situation affect to the decrease of heritage objects from 500 units to 125 units for the last 20 years. The heritage area that situated in urban area has many values while their advantage are not yet maximalised in urban development process. This article is part of Gresik preservation concept research which aiming in building criterion for preservation concepts by grounding up perception and values that lies in the community either who lives in an urban heritage area of Gresik, Kampung Kemasan, and the remote community who are connected to Kampung Kemasan but may not live there in present.Preservation concept that build from the locals may describe the community participation level to preserve a city's heritage area and lead them into a heritage tourism through any capacity. This capacity represent the city's resilience through tourism. The resiliency aspect are then examined through social capacity that exist in Kampung Kemasan community related to heritage tourism. This article are using qualitative approach in building factors that affected the heritage tourism through the social capacity indicators. Focus groups discussions and in-depth interviews were held as a method to ground up perception, and a set of trancript data are analysed through content analysis method. The finding reveals some factors related to social capacity description which consists of local community daily activities that mostly situated in or near the Kampung Kemasan and also their commitment to held any annual activities that seen as a potencial aspect to involve the locals in urban heritage management; the existence of a social capital through space and time they have managed together to discuss things about their settlements; the existence of Nyi Ageng Pinatih and Nyi Ageng Arem-Arem's tomb (the former figures of Kampung Kemasan) as a focus of attraction for religious visit; and the aesthetic and originality factors of every building in Kampung Kemasan that tells many stories about the histories of Kampung Kemasan.