Abstract
The paper aims at identifying factors that affected the management of the partnership to upgrade ecotourism value chain. This paper discusses the partnership of community-based ecotourism in the rural area in Indonesia. Two tourist villages in Semarang District of Central Java Province, Lerep and Tegalwaton Village, were selected for case study. Cross-sector partnership among governments, business, nongovernmental organization and communities become key strategy for ecotourism development and improving its outcomes. This research reviews the integration of the collaborative arrangement processes into ecotourism performance measurement systems. Data was collected using semi-structured in-depth interview with related actors and stakeholders. The results of the research show factors influencing the success of a partnership in ecotourism development are commitment, government arrangement, trust, inclusiveness of stakeholders and social conditions. Both Lerep and Tegalwaton were being a part of partnership in tourism cluster that consisting of tourism actors and Semarang District government units. Even though Lerep showed their partnership in wide-range organizations reaching national and international level. We found Lerep’s village leader was very trustworthy to encourage local community and very active promoting the village in national level. Meanwhile, Tegalwaton focused on making relationship with teacher and school association in the region as targeted market. Collaborative actions by these villages with various level of governments, other tourism actors, NGOs, schools and universities has improved capacities of individuals, community and business groups and village government to tap into opportunities by upgrading ecotourism value products and services. A tighter social relationship with other economic actors in the ecotourism value chain tend to be more successful. Besides market access is important becoming the partnership’s focus in ecotourism development. The findings indicate that establishing linkages with other actors and business within the tourism sector, within the village in term of social capital, and outside of the partnership is very important. The partnership which meet ground rules for collaboration and transfer of knowledge to the community will have the greatest positive outcome for local economic development.
