Role of Desa Adat in Tourism Development in Bali (Case Study of Bali as Tourist Destination)

Abstract

Although tourism has become key sector in economy development in Bali, there was still a debate concerning the direction of correct tourism development. This difference would refers to two views of tourism development, those were one that emphasize on global values or one that accommodate local values. Global values has proven to encourage the growth, though conflict risk from this view is quite high since it ignored local interest. While local values tend to obtain slow growth rate, with lower conflict risk. Therefore, the objectives of this study was to answer what is the direction of tourism development in Bali in the future years. This is very important given Bali had a very strong local values order and managed by Desa Adat, while growth interest should not be ignored. Based on qualitative descriptive approach with analysis method of Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and critical literature review, result showed that tourism development in Bali currently inclined toward global values. This was indicated by: (i) small role of Desa Adat in regulation and planning processes; (ii) occurring conflict was quite high. The small role of Desa Adat was caused by two factors, those are (i) internal factor of Desa Adat, in which Desa Adat was less aware concerning the impact of development; and (ii) external factor of Desa Adat, by belief that Desa Adat is inefficient and ineffective if being involved in development process. This would brought impact toward suggestion of this study that re-orientation of Desa Adat in tourism development and the importance of regional function sharpening as a mapping effort should concentrated in global and local values. This would become important in tourism development policies in Bali without loosing its local character.

Keywords: global value, local value, development acceleration, conflict, Desa Adat.