The island of Bali lies 3.2 km (2 mi) east of Java, and is approximately 8 degrees south of the equator. East to west, the island is approximately 153 km (95 mi) wide and is approximately 112 km (69 mi) north to south; it’s land area is 5,632 km². The highest point is Mount Agung at 3,142 m (10,308 feet) high, an active volcano that last erupted in March 1963. Mountains cover centre to the eastern side, with Mount Agung the easternmost peak. Mount Batur (1,717 m) is also still active; an eruption 30,000 years ago was one of the largest known volcanic events on Earth.[citation needed]
In the south the land descends to form an alluvial plain, watered by shallow, north-south flowing rivers, drier in the dry season and overflowing during periods of heavy rain. The longest of these rivers, Sungai Ayung, is also the longest on the island (approx. 75 km).
The principal city is the present provincial capital and largest city, Denpasar, near the southern coast. Its population is around 300,000. Bali’s second-largest city is the old colonial capital, Singaraja, which is located on the north coast and is home to around 100,000 people. Other important cities include the beach resort, Kuta, which is practically part of Denpasar’s urban area; and Ubud, which is north of Denpasar, and known as the island’s cultural centre.
This dissertation entitles “Agrotourism as an Alternative Form of Tourism in Bali”. The introduction describes the background, problem statement, research questions, and purposes of the research. The problem statement is how could agrotourism contribute innovation upon the tourism sector and improve the economy, social and environmental situations of local communities in Bali? The study is aimed at formulating the best strategies to develop agrotourism in Bali. The research problems are formulated as follows; how is the current situation of tourism and agriculture in Bali? What opportunities are available to develop agrotourism in Bali? What barriers are found in developing agrotourism in Bali? What are the tourism stakeholders’ opinions toward agrotourism development in Bali? How could agrotourism improve of the economy of local communities in Bali? How could agrotourism improve the social situation of local communities in Bali? How could agrotourism sustain the tourism development in Bali?
Chapter two discusses definitions and theories of agrotourism and rural tourism, identification of main relevant theories and concepts as well as their relationships, main claims, and main arguments. The literature reviews comprise agriculture, tourism, and agrotourism. The reviews comprise tourism as an interdisciplinary, sustainable tourism development, rural tourism, agriculture and rural areas in Indonesia, potencies of agrotourism in Indonesia, definition of agrotourism, history of and trends in agrotourism, philosophy of agrotourism, contribution of agrotourism to tourism, factors relate to agrotourism development, impacts of agrotourism, chances and trends of agrotourism in the world, chances of agrotourism in Indonesia and Bali, agrotourism and Balinese-Hindu philosophy, quality and sustainability of agrotourism, and the roles of tourism stakeholders.
Chapter 3 converses the research framework applied in this study. The research design figures out the method and process of analysis to draw conclusions. Two types of researches qualitative and quantitative researches are used. The selected case studies are focused in Bali Province since it is the icon of tourism in Indonesia. Bali has developed a number of agrotourism objects in potential villages, however only four case studies selected in this research, they are; (1) Bayung Gede Village, Kintamani District in Bangli Regency is promoted as rural tourism especially for orange agrotourism and unique tradition. (2) Candi Kuning Village, Baturiti District in Tabanan Regency is promoted as an agrotourism especially for strawberry and vegetables farms collaborated with beautiful panorama. (3) Blimbingsari Village, Melaya District in Jembrana Regency is promoted as rural tourism especially for coconut and cacao farms. (4) Pelaga Village, Petang District in Badung Regency is promoted as Pelaga Agrotourism particularly for vegetables and organic farming. The data collected through survey method using questionnaires questioned to sixty farmers from Bayung Gede, Candikuning, Blimbingsari, and Pelaga Villages. Besides, it also used thirty five expert respondents who come from each local community, universities, NGOs, and local governments. The data are descriptively and statistically analyzed using SWOT analysis.
The findings are descriptively and clearly discussed in Chapter 4. This study found that (1) agrotourism development in Bali has a number of opportunities such as increasing family incomes, creating working fields for the local communities, generating related tourism businesses, and increasing value of the village. Family income increases are considered to be the most potential opportunity compare to others. (2) Agrotourism development in Bali has a number of opportunities such as increasing family incomes, creating working fields for the local communities, generating related tourism businesses, and increasing value of the village. (3) The stakeholders predominantly agree that ecological and cultural resources are the strength factors of agrotourism development in Bali (4) The weaknesses of agrotourism development are lack government support, lack of investment, lack of infrastructures, and lack of human skills. Meanwhile, incomplete public facilities are not considered as weaknesses factors (5) Establishments of related tourism businesses are the most potential opportunity of agrotourism development in Bali. Other opportunities are; providing local employments, increasing family incomes, and increasing value of the village. (6) Degradation of natural resources supposed to be the riskiest threat of agrotourism development in Bali. The second most serious matter is land using problems. Other threats such as pollutions (including air, water, and land pollutions), host attitude changes, increasing criminalities, as well as commercialization of traditions are also supposed to be threats. (7) Agrotourism contributes lots of things in improving the economy of the local communities. The contributions are in the forms of agricultural product improvements, and stimulations of other related tourism enterprises such as handicraft shops, restaurants, and accommodations. (8) Agrotourism plays roles in improving the social situations of the local communities particularly poverty alleviation, decreasing unemployment as well as declining urbanization. (9) Nature conservation as one the sustainable tourism development indicators is contributed by agrotourism development in Bali. Other contributions such as international tourist arrival increase and generating economic incomes are the roles of agrotourism in applying the sustainable tourism development in Bali.
Chapter 5 elaborates the conclusion and four strategies recommended for agrotourism development in Bali which formulated from the identified strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the case studies.
(1) SO strategy, is a strategy which uses the strengths to take advantages of the opportunities. The ecological resources such as lakes, rice fields, plantations and farms as well as forests; the social and cultural resources such as existing farmers, unique traditions, agricultural organizations, events, agricultural ceremonies, organizations linkages, human resources, agriculture regulations, information systems, heritages should be well developed, and promoted since these strength factors are able to generate potencies for other tourism business establishments, employment opportunities, enhance the family income and value of the village. The uniqueness of each village should be well promoted and described to position strong images of the villages, indeed to combine agrotourism with the local indigenous and uniqueness.
• The main attractions of Bayung Gede Village are “Kuburan Ari-ari” (placenta grave) which used as the icon of the village and orange farm shall be used as the icon of agricultural products.
• The foremost attractions of Candi Kuning Village are organic farm and beautiful panorama of Beratan Lake and Eka Karya Bali Botanical Garden. They should be promoted as the icon of agrotourism of this village.
• The primary attractions of Blimbingsari Village are the unique tradition of Christian communities; Balinese-style church, and story of the village becoming a Christian village in Bali should be promoted as icon of pluralism and harmonic situation in Bali. Meanwhile the coconut and cacao farms should be used as the icon of agricultural products of this village.
• The core attractions offered at Pelaga Village are beautiful panorama of mountain, rice fields, and organic farms. They are used as the icon of the village.
The programs which should be formulated such as entire cooperation with tourism operators, packaging events in the village, and provide village information system.
(2) WO strategy, is a strategy which overcomes the weaknesses by taking advantages of opportunities. Government support, investment in agricultural sector, development of village infrastructures, human resource skills, and public facilities are identified as the weakness factors of agrotourism development in Bali, therefore the local “village” government and all stakeholders should propose agrotourism development to the provincial government and central government to play more roles in order to apply the agrotourism concepts and reach the primary goals of rural economic empowerment. The programs which should be formulated are provide accessibilities for the agricultural investors to invest in the village to rise up the numbers of local SMEs “Small and Medium Entrepreneurs”, providing regulations, developing infrastructures and public facilities, as well as giving training and certain kinds of live-skills to the local communities in order to master tourism skills particularly agribusiness skills
(3) ST strategy, is a strategy which use the strengths to avoid threats. Local uniqueness and indigenous used as tourism attractions shall be well managed and controlled to avoid the matters such as degradation of natural resources, land using problems such land for non agricultural sector, pollution, host attitude changes, criminalities, and commercialization of traditions. The programs which should be formulated are providing environment controller system, provide business related agribusiness, and promote organic farms system.
(4) WT strategy, is a strategy which minimizes the weaknesses and avoids threats. The weaknesses such as lack of government support, investment in agricultural sector, development of village infrastructures, human skills, and public facilities shall me immediately improved to develop agrotourism well. Furthermore the local communities should be actively involved in policy and planning makings. The programs which should be formulated are involving the local communities as controller in many levels of organizations, issuing policy, using bottom-up planning system, enlarge cooperation with investors to develop agrotourism.
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