Is meeting the needs of tourists through ethnic tourism sustainable? Focus on Bali, Indonesia

Abstract

The United Nations’ World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) states that “it is necessary to respect the host community’s socio-cultural authenticity and protect cultural heritage and traditional values” to facilitate sustainable tourism development. Sustainable Tourism Indicators (STI:2004) show that sustainable tourism development promotes economic, social, environmental, and cultural sustainability. Therefore, it is essential to understand the resident situational context and safeguard “the happiness in the society that hosts tourism”. Tourism that uses cultural heritage as a selling point includes ethnic tourism. Cultural heritage and traditional values are attractive sales resources for generating tourism revenue. This point may be detrimental to the residents because they damage the culture and traditions in multiple economic, social, and cultural aspects of economic, social, and cultural. Ethnic tourism must be sustainable without destroying the local culture and traditions. This study aims to analyze whether the requirements for sustainable tourism development that the UNWTO outlined met by the ethnic tourism that Bali develop. Ethnic tourism has grown in Bali since it first began in the 1970s; many tourists have visited the region and have been deeply impressed by its traditional arts and crafts and hope to bring them back. This phenomenon has generated an immense demand for taking home back pieces of traditional Balinese art and crafts and bolster the mass production of traditional art and crafts sold as souvenirs to tourists. Regarding this situation, positive and negative effects on the culture and traditions of the region by over-tourism through ethnic tourism need to be determined. This study focused on traditional Balinese sculptures and paintings and conducted surveys to examine the consciousness of craftsmen involved in traditional crafts to reveal the influences of tourism on traditional culture in Bali. The hypothesis of this study was as follows: Ethnic tourism that attempts to sell traditional culture to the tourist does not satisfy the requirements for the development of sustainable tourism development leading to happiness in the society hosting the tourism. As a preliminary survey, I planned interviews to obtain the craftsmen's opinions and to devise questions for subsequent questionnaires. I conducted the interviews with craftsmen in August 2019 (n = 4). Subsequently, I conducted the questionnaire survey for craftsmen (wood-carving and painting) in August and September 2019 and January 2020 (n = 103). The questionnaires were analyzed using simple tabulation, comparison of means, factor analysis, and multiple regression analysis. Additionally, as a survey to understand customers’ needs concerning traditional culture, I conducted an interview survey for tourists in August 2019. This survey sought to identify why they purchased wood-carvings and paintings (n = 9). These surveys showed that nearly half of the craftsmen involved in traditional crafts lost their employment because of ethnic tourism. The hypothesis was verified because the situation did not achieve sustainability for maintaining the livelihoods of the craftsmen, who also play a role in the transmission of traditional culture. It was unclear whether the life with ethnic tourism that eliminated their position would lead to happiness.