Towards sustainable tourism in Bali

Abstract

As with many tourist destinations, Bali has accessed modernity and globalization through tourism. In 2015, Bali attracted 4 million tourists coming mainly from several Western countries but even more so from Asian countries. And this number has now been overtaken by domestic visitors, estimated to be 7.15 million Indonesian tourists in 2015. In this context, Bali has been selected as a privileged place for analysis: a small island with huge frequentation where sustainable tourism projects have been tried, since 1987 and 1989. This situation questions the suitability of a global paradigm – sustainable development – for a local society which has developed specific concepts of social and natural environment. Can the universal proposal of “sustainability” associating economy, society and environment, but fundamentally based on a Western concept of nature – defined by its externality from humanity – and society – based on an ideal of individualism and equality – be appropriated by the Balinese cosmological philosophy called Tri Hita Karana? If both proclaim a desire to create a balance between mankind and “nature”, do they have the same meaning? In order to answer this, we will first go back to the historical relationship between Balinese society and sustainable development issues, which date from 1987. Then we will study in more detail the specificities of the Balinese relationship with the environment through the local paradigm of Tri Hita Karana. Finally, we will question the possible suitability of international and local conceptions of “sustainability”, which are sociocultural constructions, and the possible emergence of innovative new models by syncretism. Even though sustainable development involves three components – the “trinity” of economy, society and environment – in this article we focus only on the latter aspect, which is the integration of environmental issues within Balinese society.