Quantifying villager readiness in rural tourism: an application of analytical hierarchy process (AHP)

ABSTRACT

While many studies neglect to assess villager readiness for tourism-based village development, this present study addresses this issue by providing a quantitative measurement to evaluate villager readiness towards tourism programmes. Using Balesari village -an emerging tourism village in Indonesia- as a case, the level of readiness was measured. To better capture the actual condition, the present study applied Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to weigh each dimension based on stakeholders’ priority. Drawing from the key stakeholders’ dimension weighting and field survey of 187 respondents, we can quantify the readiness level and provide detailed descriptions of villager readiness in a tourism development project. The result of this study may inform policymakers in assessing rural tourism development projects from the villagers’ perspective.

KEYWORDS:

• rural tourism
• rural development
• villager readiness
• Indonesia

Acknowledgements

The Author would like to thank Catur Wulandari, Yuni Cahyowati, Siam Khoirul Bahri, and Awieta Nirmala from Universitas Tidar for their help and support during data collection; and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia.

Notes on contributors

Arif Budy Pratama

Arif Budy Pratama is lecturer at Public Administration Programme, Universitas Tidar, Indonesia. He is currently undertaking his PhD at the Bonn International Graduate School for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, Germany. He holds an MPA (with Distinction) from University of Exeter, UK. His research interests include development policy, development administration, and urban-rural development and governance. Prior to joining academia, he worked as the head of Programme Formulation in the Coordinating Ministry for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs, Republic of Indonesia.