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JOSS :

Journal of Social Science

COLLABORATION GOVERNANCE ON ECOTOURISM BELITUNG UNESCO

GLOBAL GEOPARK

Wahyudi Utomo

, Effy Z Rusfian

, Martani Huseini

Politeknik Negeri Jakarta

, Universitas Indonesia

2,3

E-mail: [email protected]

, [email protected]

[email protected]

KEYWORDS

Collaboration;

Governance;

Ecotourism.

ABSTRACT

This study aims to analyze the governance of collaboration of the Belitung

Ecotourism UNESCO Global Geopark. Attention is given to the study of

collaboration governance considered one of the key issues of success in the

context of Belitung tourism development as part of the UNESCO Global

Geopark network. The contribution and role of each actor whether from the

government, private sector, community, or community has made a positive

contribution to building sustainable and environmentally sound tourism

quality. This research uses a sequential mixed methods research

exploratory approach, in this research data is obtained through in-depth

interviews, document reviews, and surveys so that the triangulation process

can be carried out more completely. Research informants consisted of

elements of government, the private sector, associations, society, and

communities. A total of 13 informants were interviewed and 31 people

responded to the survey. The results show that trust, values, and social

networks have become the glue and bind each actor so that they function

as a basic element to form a good collaboration.

INTRODUCTION

Indonesia as a destination has been considered by the tourism market as an attractive

destination. Economic growth, political stability, and security are getting better, attracting

many local and foreign investors interested in investing in Indonesia either as organizers or as

participants. The tourism sector has played a key role as a country's development engine, this

sector has many roles and advantages in supporting development, namely large capital and

investment value, the ability to absorb a large workforce, and the ability to create value-added

creation. The Indonesian tourism sector has a very strategic role to grow the economic activities

of the community and encourage the growth of other industries such as the household industry,

small and medium industries, and other industrial groups and involves all human economic

activities in producing goods or services. Through this framework, tourism destinations in the

region can be linked and combined to include all products, services, and experiences offered.

These components can help see the regional impact of tourism and manage supply and demand

to maximize benefits for all actors (Riyanto et al., 2019).

Belitung Island is an island located at 107°31.5' - 108°18' East Longitude and 2°31.5'-

3°6.5' South Latitude. In the local language called Belitong, it is one of two large islands in the

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Province of Bangka Belitung Islands with an overall area of 4,800 km² or 480,010 ha. Belitung

Island consists of two regencies, namely Belitung Regency with its capital Tanjung Pandan,

and East Belitung Regency with its capital Manggar. The main source of income for this region

is derived from the primary sector, especially tin mining products. Even from tin mining, the

province of Bangka Belitung islands can contribute around 30% of the world's tin needs, and

of course, this provides a large income for foreign exchange and contributes a not small amount

to the revenue sector or Gross Regional Domestic Revenue (GRDP) as shown in table 1 below.

Table 1

Export Structure by Sector

Description

Tin

Animal/vegetable

Fats & Oils

Coffee, Tea &

Spices

Fish &

Shrimp

Export Value

January - April 2022

983.83

million US$

97.78 Million US$

10,84 Million US$

9,03 Million

US$

M-to-M Change

33,23%

150,28%

10,96%

-18,00%

Y-on-Y Change

97,52%

118,65%

150,76%

11,10%

Source: BPS Bangka Belitung Year 2022

Based on Table 1, shows that until today the general mining sector, especially tin, is

included in the primary sector group and is still the mainstay of the Bangka Belitung Islands

Provincial Government. Meanwhile, the tourism sector is included in the tertiary sector group

and only contributes 28.03% to GRDP (BPS Bangka Belitung Islands Province).

Tourism in Belitung has long been predicted to be the mainstay sector after tin mining.

The moratorium policy on tin mining issued some time ago, further solidified the steps of the

local government to develop the tourism sector as a leading sector that can play a major role in

the economic progress of the community. The existence of the Belitung Geopark as part of the

UNESCO Global Geopark further emphasizes Belitung as an international tourist destination

expected to boost the welfare of the community through tourist destination visits based on the

concept of protection, education, and sustainable development. According to Morgan,

destinations have now emerged as leading brands in the travel industry (Morgan et al., 2011).

The concept of ecotourism is an important essence that can be relied upon as an integral part

of developing tourism potential. This concept has recently become a trend along with the

placement of tourism and the environment as a unity of interrelated and futuristic activities

(Ibrahim et al., 2019).

The research seeks to explore how to develop a Geopark Ecotourism collaboration

governance design as an effort to develop Belitung as part of the tourism industry in Indonesia

can achieve a competitive advantage in the global market and regional tourism management

that can increase the acquisition of national foreign exchange earners and increase local

revenue (PAD). It is hoped that the existence of this tourism potential will be able to create and

encourage Geocities-based development that provides economic benefits and creates

prosperity for the community. The economic benefits that are born and felt by the community

must also be accompanied by awareness to maintain the survival of existing tourist objects,

thus the balance of economic activities and environmental conservation must be a joint

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commitment of every local economic actor so that the Belitung Geopark tourism management

survives in the context of tourism object conservation and remains an international tourist

destination choice.

(Silberberg, 1995) points out that collaboration with other forms of tourism can ttract a

wide audience because it offers a variety of experiences that will ultimately increase the

perceived value for their time and money. Collaboration is not only seen in an attempt to

expand the market geographically but is utilized to develop potential markets in terms of

segments. Collaboration can also contribute to bringing the potential of natural and cultural

heritage tourism as well as other forms of tourism to help build synergies with other tourism.

In addition, collaboration among existing stakeholders is expected to increase opportunities for

mutually beneficial communication and implementation (Silberberg, 1995). With the existence

of facilities and resources owned and the advantages of ecotourism resources, it can be created

and connected into a form of tourism that can stimulate the interest of tourists to experience

different activities in certain destinations. Creativity is the core of creative tourism (Tan et al.,

2013). The relationship between tourism and creativity shows that the roles of both can be

associated with the scope of developing tourism products and tourism experiences (Richards,

2011). Ecotourism can help destinations rethink and remodel cultural and other tourism in

innovative ways and enhance their creative potential in general (Richards, 2011).

Attention is given to the study of the governance of geopark ecotourism collaboration as

one of the key issues of collaborative governance in the context of a network that involves the

role of each actor or stakeholder involved. Researchers see the need to conduct research that

examines how the role of each stakeholder in the process of creating collaborative governance

of geopark ecotourism and as an effort to build innovative tourism quality. In particular,

attention is given along with the institutional and theoretical basis for the development of

geopark ecotourism collaboration governance design is relatively new and demands deeper and

comprehensive disclosure. then the research objectives are explained To analyze collaboration

governance in the development of Belitung Geopark Ecotourism and analyze the ideal

collaboration governance design in the development of Belitung Geopark Ecotourism.

METHOD RESEARCH

This research will use a mixed-method research approach. It is expected that the purpose

of the approach using a mixed research approach will be to provide a better understanding of

research problems and phenomena that are more complex than using the approach itself

(Mariani, 2016). Another reason in favour of this approach is that this method can provide

validation of research findings, thus describing more complete and comprehensive results

(Figure 1).

Figure 1

Exploratory Sequential Mixed Method Research Design

Source: Creswell, 2018

Data Collection

and Qualitative

Data Analysis

Identification

for results

Data Collection

and Quantitative

Data Analysis

Interpretation

of results

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The mixed methods approach used in this research is an exploratory sequential mixed

method, which is based on (Creswell & Creswell, 2018) mixed method is a strategy for

researchers to combine data found from one method with other methods. The author uses a

mixed method with the hope that in addition to complementing the shortcomings, answers to

the subject matter will also be obtained more comprehensively than utilizing one method alone.

As explained earlier, in this study data was obtained through in-depth interviews, document

reviews, and surveys so that the triangulation process could be carried out more fully.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The collaborative practice developed by Ansell & Gash (2008) describes a collaborative

governance framework that connects between five (5) interrelated dimensions. The five

important dimensions that are prerequisites for collaborative governance include starting

conditions, collaborative process, institutional design, facilitative leadership, and outcomes.

This research was conducted by conducting interviews and surveys in Belitung Regency

in May and December 2023 A total of 13 informants were interviewed and 31 people responded

to the survey. The results showed that trust, values, and social networks have become the glue

and bind each actor so that they function as a basic element to form a good collaboration. The

researcher also conducted FGDs by presenting several elements of association representatives

and tourism actors. Survey data processing was carried out using the SPSS version 29 and MS

Excell applications with the average results of the dimensions and indicators of collaborative

governance described in Table 2 as follows:

Table 2

Average Dimensions and Indicators of Collaborative Governance in Belitung Regency

Dimension

Indicator

Mean Indicator

Mean Dimension

Initial Condition

Power asymmetry

3,15

2,90

History of Cooperation/Conflict

2,65

Collaboration

Process

Building Dialogue

3,21

3,09

Building Trust

3,21

Commitment

3,16

Shared Understanding

3,05

Interim Results

2,84

Institutional Design

Ground Rules

2,82

3,01

Broad Participation

3,19

Open Government

3,00

Facilitative

Leadership

Reliable Management

2,87

2,84

Technical Credibility

2,82

Decision Integrity

2,81

Outcomes

Dimension

Long-term Outputs

3,10

Source: processed by researchers in 2023

The results of the quantitative analysis of all indicators of collaborative governance show

that the outcomes dimension has the highest mean value with a value of 3.10 compared to other

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dimensions. The dimension with the lowest mean indicator is the facilitative leadership

dimension with a mean dimension value of 2.84.

Figure 2

Average of Collaborative Governance Dimensions for Belitung District (n = 31)

Source: Data processed by researchers, 2023

Figure 3 shows that the implementation of collaboration practices based on Ansell and

Gash's five (5) dimensional framework has an average value of 2.99. Based on the five (5)

dimensions, three (3) dimensions have a value above the average, namely the collaboration

process dimension, the institutional design dimension, and the outcomes dimension, while two

(2) dimensions have a value below the average, namely the initial conditions dimension and

the facilitative leadership dimension. That related to respondents' perceptions of the three

dimensions assessed to have values above the average shows that the dimensions of the

collaboration process, the dimensions of institutional design, and the outcomes dimension can

be said to have gone well. Meanwhile, the other dimensions, namely the initial conditions

dimension and the facilitative leadership dimension, were assessed by respondents to have low

scores. Although the value of these two dimensions is below the average, the value is close to

the average value, which can be interpreted as indicating that the ongoing process is showing

a positive direction.

In addition to quantitative data through surveys, researchers also collected and conducted

qualitative analysis of primary data obtained through in-depth interviews and FGDs using the

NVivo 12 application. The combination of the two types of data is intended to obtain more

complete and comprehensive results.

Figure 3

Hierarchical Graph of Collaborative Governance Qualitative analysis results from interview

transcripts and FGDs with NVivo 12 application (n statements = 195 statements)

Source: Data Processed by Researchers 2023

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Figure 4 shows the hierarchy chart, the coding results found a comparison between

dimensions, which explains that informants/source persons quoted the most statements about

the collaboration process, totaling 107 statements. While the dimension with the least number

of quotes is the initial conditions dimension with 24 statements. This shows that the

collaboration process has the highest attention from the informants. Another factor that causes

the large number of statements in this dimension can also be influenced by the large number of

indicators in the collaborative process dimension compared to the other 4 dimensions.

The results of the word frequency search analysis, namely the number of words that

appear the most, are used in this study to see the words most often spoken by informants when

answering questions. This search was carried out by ignoring (stop word) for all conjunctions

in the sentence. The results of the word search on the coding that has been prepared for words

consisting of at least ten letters show that the five highest words are community, tourism,

government, communication, and conservation. Referring to the existing word cloud and word

frequency shows that the community is the subject and object for which the collaboration is

carried out and gets the maximum benefit from the collaboration.

Collaboration is not just about negotiations between stakeholders, but more than that,

collaboration is an effort to build trust with each other (Ansell & Gash, 2008). Building trust in

a series of collaborative governance processes is an emotional action carried out by behavior

between stakeholders with the creation of critical concern for the results that will be achieved.

The aspect of building trust with shared understanding is two faces of a coin, where building

trust requires a foundation of shared understanding, both of which cannot be separated from the

communication and dialog that is built (Muslim, 2021).

The results of the interpretation of the initial conditions dimension and the collaboration

process, dimension at the beginning of building dialog and interim results found the fact that if

in Belitung Regency in the initial conditions of the collaboration process two things were the

main drivers of the collaboration process, namely building dialog and trust, which are strong

aspects that influence collaboration. Social capital is not solely seen as a result but rather a

process. The collaboration process is based on efforts to strengthen face-to-face dialog and build

trust among stakeholders built on cultural values and social networks. So the collaborative work

process based on this becomes the energy and strength of the community or society based on its

nature and substance, namely the existence of social processes in the form of trust, norms, and

networks that cannot be separated from one another. The social processes that have been formed

and have been ongoing can be said to reflect the strength of social capital owned by the

community or society.

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Figure 4

Visualization of Number of Informants Discussing Social Capital

Source: Data Processing by Researcher, NVivo 2023

Figure 6. explains the position of social capital in the Collaborative Governance of

Belitung Geopark Ecotourism is very important to highlight considering that the Belitung

Geopark Ecotourism development paradigm that has been running so far is more bottom-up

than top-down. So far, social capital, which combines elements of values and cooperation

networks, has been running and functioning in shaping the social dimensions of Belitung

society. Social capital is closely related to the social values of the Belitung community so that

social capital has been able to become an adhesive and bind certain people (who usually have

certain commonalities, such as similarity of work, similarity of residence, similarity of

ethnicity, religion, and so on), as well as bridging between different people, with a norm of

reciprocity exchange. As a result, social capital has produced a Belitung community

development paradigm that integrates the three dimensions of development: social, economic,

and environmental. This is in line with Fathy's opinion that the position of social capital has a

positive role and encourages the creation of community participation, accessibility, and

freedom, which is also a principle in the sustainable inclusive development paradigm (Fathy,

2019).

Figure 5

Relationship between Values, Beliefs and Informal Networks with Stakeholders

Source: Data Processing by Researcher, NVivo 2023

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CONCLUSION

Based on the above classification, the determination of the development of collaborative

governance design is very concern in this study as the urgency for the findings in answering

the formulation of the problem, other things also strengthen researchers in finding renewal from

research, not only the renewal of the researched field study but renewal of design development

to over some of the weaknesses in the grand theory that researchers consider still relevant by

he case study of Collaborative Governance.

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Wahyudi Utomo

, Effy

, Martani Huseini

(2024)

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