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ABSTRACT
The Mentawai Islands, Indonesia, are an emerging surfing tourism destination. Surfing tourism has the potential to provide significant economic income and employment opportunities for remote communities in less-developed destinations. However, much of the current surfing tourism development is controlled by foreign investors and the actual reported benefits to local community are marginal. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to explore the local community participation in the Mentawai Islands surfing tourism industry. The paper also investigated possible future directions for increasing the local community involvement in the surfing tourism industry. Field research was conducted in the period between July and September of 2010, through in-depth interviews with local stakeholder representatives. In conclusion, the local community perceived foreign ownership and lack of government support as the major barriers to participation. A key finding of this paper was that the local community recognised education and training as the most effective way to increase their participation in the surfing tourism industry; therefore, it is recommended that future studies examine the viability of implementing tourism-specific education and training.