Sustainable tourism development strategy in Bintan Regency based on Tourism Area Life Cycle

Abstract

Bintan Regency is regarded as a significant potential tourist destination. The tourism sector has already been developing quite rapidly there in recent years. This study examines its stages of tourism development based on Butler’s tourism area life cycle model. Identification of the stages was made by looking at the characteristics of various criteria: destination characteristics, marketing response, economic impacts, social impacts, and environmental impacts. The stage identification result shows that this district is in a “development” phase. Using this result, we generate a strategy for pushing Bintan Regency to the next stage in the TALC model. The AHP model was developed as a decision support system to determine a priority strategy based on experts’ assessment of tourism development in the Bintan district. From the analysis, we found that economic and social criteria have a more significant impact on the regency’s development. Meanwhile, security and safety improvements and quality of service improvements must become higher strategic priorities. They were also regarded as being the most important strategies to develop the tourist areas of the Bintan Regency during the “consolidation” stage.