Sustainable Ecology: The Role of Local Communities in Achieving Sustainable Tourism Village

Economic conditions in the urban areas tend to be more developed than in the rural areas, which make a significant income gap between the two areas. An appropriate solution is required to overcome this problem. One of the efforts required is to observe the economic development evenly, not only in urban but also in rural areas. Today the government emphasizes the tourism sector development as one of the priorities. This sector has the potential to stimulate the economic growth directly and indirectly. Tourism also plays a role in creating jobs and increasing income, especially when tourism development is conducted in an area. This provides opportunities for the local communities to be involved in the tourism industry and utilize the existing potential. The concept of community-based tourism is the right choice to strengthen how to improve the economy in rural areas through active community participation in managing the tourist villages. This research aims at analyzing and evaluating the implementation of tourist village development with a local community empowerment approach and its relationship to sustainable environmental maintenance. This is a combination of quantitative and qualitative research, which uses the primary data taken with observation techniques and Focus Group Discussions. This research used the Delphi method and qualitative descriptive as the analysis. Qualitative analysis is used to provide a clear picture of how community empowerment may contribute to the development of tourist villages. The results of research found a model that explains the role of local communities in realizing the sustainability of tourist villages in Central Java. The community’s active involvement in the management and utilization of tourist villages has provided empirical evidence of the local community’s role in improving the economic performance of tourist villages through the concept of sustainable ecology.