Rural tourism entrepreneurship success factors for sustainable tourism village: Evidence from Indonesia

Abstract

This study aims to examine the success factors and build the framework of rural tourism entrepreneurship for a sustainable tourism village. This is an important research topic, as 44.28% population in the world live in rural areas; specifically 44.02% population in Indonesia resides in a rural area which indicates how important rural areas are for future development. This study used a purposive sampling technique to determine the priority issues of the sustainability of the tourism village. The data was gathered from semi-structured interviews with actors’ influential in the success of tourism villages. This study was conducted with a qualitative approach and a case study design. This study uses content analysis in describing the findings from the collected data to better understand the case study. It focuses on a case of six tourism villages in Indonesia that have received awards as sustainable tourism villages, as it might be adopted by the other tourism villages. The results revealed ten factors for creating successful sustainable tourism village through rural tourism entrepreneurship. Those factors are income management, business unit development, economic growth, mutual cooperation, collaboration, innovation, creativity, environmental awareness, resource management, and visitor management. These 10 factors are further grouped into three dimensions (economic, social, and environmental sustainability). The study makes new framework of rural tourism entrepreneurship and useful for the strategy and decision-making process.

Keywords:

• sustainable tourism
• tourism resources
• rural tourism management
• tourism entrepreneurship
• tourism management
• success factor
• rural tourism entrepreneurship

1. Introduction

Tourism is one of the essential sectors that can contribute to enhancing and sustaining the quality of life in rural areas. Leu (2019) mentioned that quality of life in rural area advance as rural community can get additional income from tourism activities. In addition, the development of the rural area, especially the quality of life, will be boosted in the form of sustainable businesses in the tourism village, which provides unique characteristics and added value for their products and services (Alrawadieh & Alrawadieh, 2018). Hence, the development of the rural tourism area needs significant engagement on part of family enterprises and the tourism entrepreneur. In other words, rural tourism development is associated with entrepreneurship, which can facilitate economic growth and improve quality of life (Korsgaard & Müller, 2015). It is in line with Deller (2019) and Booth et al. (2020) who stated that one of the most significant aspects of local economic growth and quality of life is rural entrepreneurship.

Moreover, Stathopoulou et al. (2004) mentioned that entrepreneurship is central to the economic development of any region. On the other hand, Zolfani et al. (2015) stated that rural community is not only gets local economic benefits from tourism entrepreneurship, but also keeps the environment protected. In addition, Sá (2019) mentioned that entrepreneurship have positive relationship with social value that develop communities. Therefore, entrepreneurship has a strong relationship with rural tourism development as it can create economic, environment, and social impacts such as job creation, quality of life (Sá, 2019), enhance economic value, preserve local culture, as well as sustain resources (A. R. Galvao et al., 2020).

Furthermore, rural tourism is a small but rapidly growing sector (Aazami & Shanazi, 2020). Successful rural tourism management can positively impact the community, economy, and the direction of regional development (Ayhan et al., 2020). In recent years, interest in rural tourism has risen as a result of the reduction in agriculture and population outmigration (Cunha et al., 2020). Hence, the government should encourage entrepreneurial activity as one of the major goals of rural development policy (Kuratko et al., 2015). Other than that, rural research is gaining interest and importance (Imedashvili et al., 2013). Moreover, 44.28% population in the world lives in rural area, specifically Indonesia as study case in this paper, which 44.02% population resides in a rural area (Macrotrends, 2019), should consider rural development crucial for the future of the entire country. This statistic indicates how important to develop rural areas are for future development by investigating the success factors of a tourism village in implementing rural tourism entrepreneurship for a sustainable tourism village.

Previous study examined sustainable rural tourism can be gained by developing tourism entrepreneurship (Akrivos et al., 2014). However, it mentioned that it needs some good examples from any country who have achieved it. Therefore, this study explores study case from 6 sustainable tourism villages as the real examples.

Subsequently, (Rinaldi et al., 2020) explained the university role for the success of tourism destination. In addition, Sá (2019) defined local development through rural entrepreneurship by collaborating university, industry and government. However, this study makes a contribution by furthering the knowledge on multiple actors in the model.

Based on the above explanation, it needs to elaborate the rural tourism entrepreneurship factor in the establishment of a sustainable tourism village through a case study of a tourism village, as they might be adopted by other tourism villages. Therefore, this paper aims to build a model of rural tourism entrepreneurship for a sustainable tourism village and highlight the success factors of rural tourism entrepreneurship.

2. Literature review

Rural entrepreneurship is largely community-based and has a prominent impact on communities (Elena et al., 2015; Harpa, 2017). In addition, Boohene and Agyapong (2017) described rural entrepreneurship can impact communities in rural areas from severe depopulation issues, a strong dependence on agricultural activities, and low activity of entrepreneurs. In recent years, some scholars have reported that entrepreneurship positively impacts market development, resource productivity, job opportunity, and creativity, all of which lead to regional development (A. Galvao et al., 2018). Therefore, entrepreneurship is identified as a necessary factor for fostering regional and national development, especially rural economic growth (Ribeiro-soriano, 2017; Sá, 2019).

Rural economic growth necessitates combining human capital development, infrastructure development, and social capital with the development of the agricultural sector (Harpa, 2017). It is in line with Yuan et al. (2017) that mentioned human capital in the growth of rural tourism can be crucial. Hence, human capital need to be developed and deserve more attention as they can contribute to the success of rural area (Solvoll, 2015). The program to develop human capital such as stimulates their creativity, innovation, managerial skills, and social skills as well as environmental awareness are important to improve rural area (Ataei et al., 2020). Moreover, as mentioned by Harpa (2017), social capital is one of the aspects to support rural economic growth in rural area. The skills in social capital need to be developed such as outstanding communication skills in order to communicate with different stakeholder so they can cooperate and collaborate effectively for rural economic growth (Dale & Newman, 2010). The collaboration with various stakeholders should be created to ensure that variety of service in rural area such as lodging, food, transportation, activities are available for visitors (Harpa, 2017). Furthermore, cooperation with local actors should be strengthened to keep tourism village sustain (López et al., 2019).

Rural tourism entrepreneurship as mention by Elena et al. (2015) and Harpa (2017) is largely community-based. It means that local people involve in the activities of tourism entrepreneurship, and might create job opportunities, building employment, and creating value to the area (A. R. Galvao et al., 2020). Similarly, Harpa (2017) notes that local community involvement, may create sustainability for long-term regional growth and can be advantageous in terms of new employment, new industries, job diversification, and so on. Subsequently, local involvement will avoid conflicts of various interests in rural development, as well as assist potential entrepreneurs in identifying new tourism products and services (López et al., 2019). In line with López et al. (2019), Akrivos et al. (2014) mentioned that local people or local community involvement is a requisite for sustainable development as it can prevent conflicts of interest that may arise. Moreover, encouraging local people to involve, can raise local awareness of rural tourism entrepreneurship benefits and keep it sustain (López et al., 2019). For example, farmers as rural tourism entrepreneurs can be mentioned as a vital base for sustainable regional development, because their involvement in long-term regional development will add social, economic, and environmental value to the area while maintaining scarce resources in the area (Akrivos et al., 2014). In this respect, tourism entrepreneurs have important role in rural area sustainable development (Lordkipanidze et al., 2005).

Furthermore, Kallmuenzer et al. (2019) stated that rural tourism entrepreneurship can create positive impacts for regional economic, social, and environment by exploring and strengthening local identity, local culture, local activities; retaining rural populations in the region; and minimizing negative environmental impacts. It means that there is positive relationship between rural tourism entrepreneurship and sustainable regional growth.

On other hand, many barriers impede the growth of entrepreneurship in rural areas, affecting the scope of entrepreneurial activity as well as its chances of success. The barrier relating to economic, social, learning and market difficulties such as negative social attitude toward entrepreneurship, shortage of capital for start-up, lack of skills, lack of information, resistance to change, and lack of promotion (Lordkipanidze et al., 2005). In addition, lack of positive entrepreneurship role models may also be considered one of the most significant obstacles to the growth of rural entrepreneurship (Harpa, 2017). Therefore, the role model or the study case from tourism village that have already sustained is necessary to be explore, especially the success factors of rural tourism entrepreneurship for sustainable tourism village that might be implemented in other tourism villages. However, entrepreneurship has undeniably become an interesting topic in rural development (Carter et al., 2018).

3. Methodology

3.1. Research design

A qualitative approach with a case study design was used in this study to gain a better understanding of social phenomena, as well as to be more versatile and informative in explaining them (Newing, 2011). Meanwhile, case studies allow researchers to investigate complex social phenomena (Yin, 2003). In this study, a case study design has been employed to understand the contextual conditions of rural tourism entrepreneurship in six successful sustainable tourism villages in Indonesia.

3.2. Sample design

This study used a purposive sampling technique to examine the success factors and build the model of rural tourism entrepreneurship for a sustainable tourism village. Since the context of this research is case study in tourism village, therefore the population in this research is tourism village that already sustained. There are 16 certify sustainable tourism villages in Indonesia (see, Table 1) which certified by Ministry of Tourism in Indonesia based on 4 criteria (see, Table 2).

Table 1. Sixteen certified sustainable tourism village in Indonesia

No	Tourism Villages	Districts	Province
1	Pentingsari	Sleman	D.I. Yogyakarta
2	Nglanggeran	Gunungkidul	D.I. Yogyakarta
3	Jatimulyo	Kulonprogo	D.I. Yogyakarta
4	Candirejo	Magelang	Central Java
5	Karangrejo	Magelang	Central Java
6	Kandri	Semarang	Central Java
7	Lerep	Semarang	Central Java
8	Panglipuran	Bangli	Bali
9	Pamuteran	Buleleng	Bali
10	Pujon Kidul	Malang	East Java
11	Osing Kemiren	Banyuwangi	East Java
12	Liang Ndara	Manggarai Barat	West Nusa Tenggara
13	Bilibante	Lombok Tengah	West Nusa Tenggara
14	Kembang Kuning	Lombok Timur	West Nusa Tenggara
15	Sesaot	Lombok Barat	West Nusa Tenggara
16	Batu Layang	Bogor	West Java

Table 2. Criteria for certified sustainable tourism village

No	Criteria	Sub Criteria
1	Sustainable Management.	Management structure & framework. Stakeholder engagement.
2	Economy.	Local economic benefits Welfare.
3	Cultural preservation	Protecting cultural heritage
4	Environmental conservation.	Resource management Natural conservation.

Source: (Menparekraf. Pedoman destinasi pariwisata berkelanjutan, Pub. L. No. Permenparekraf No 9 Tahun 2021, 2021)

This study focused on area which will be representative from each province of sustainable tourism village. However, based on Table 1, this study explores 6 sustainable tourism villages which have different potential products/services (Table 3 and 5) and located in the different province (Table 3). They could prove a good sample for discovering the success factors and designing a model for a sustainable tourism village through rural tourism entrepreneurship. The 6 sustainable villages as the representative from different province that use as case study in this research is shown on Table 3.

Table 3. Six tourism villages as case study

No	Tourism Villages	Districts	Province
1	Nglanggeran	Gunung Kidul	D.I. Yogyakarta
2	Candirejo	Magelang	Central Java
3	Panglipuran	Bangli	Bali
4	Pujon Kidul	Malang	East Java
5	Sesaot	Lombok Barat	West Nusa Tenggara
6	Batu Layang	Bogor	West Java

Table 4. Participant Profile

No	Code	Position	Tourism Village	Province	Age	Gender	Education
1	SHT	Village-owned enterprise Manager	Nglanggeran	D. I. Yogyakarta	33	M	Undergraduate
2	TTK	Tourism Village Manager	Candirejo	Central Java	53	M	Undergraduate
3	INM	Tourism Village Manager	Panglipuran	Bali	70	M	Undergraduate
4	IKS	Tourism Village Manager	Pujon Kidul	East Java	33	M	High school graduate
5	AZN	Tourism Community	Sesaot	West Nusa Tenggara	46	M	Undergraduate
6	ADR	Tourism Village Manager	Batulayang	West Java	35	M	High school graduate

Table 5. The Profile of Six Tourism Villages

	Panglipuran	Pujon Kidul	Nglanggeran	Candirejo	Sesaot	Batulayang
Province	Bali	East Java	Yogyakarta	Central Java	West Nusa Tenggara	West Java
Area	112 ha	330 ha	762 ha	366 ha	1.308 ha	225 ha
Population	1008	4121	2664	4321	6139	10.817
Income (Rp)	3.7 billion	1.4 billion	3.2 billion	2.2 billion	1 billion	1.7 billion
Achievement	Kalpataru, Indonesia Sustainable Tourism Award, The cleanest village in the world.	Sustainable Tourism Village Award, ISTA, ADWI, Best Agro Tourism Village, Creative Tourism Village.	CBT ASEAN 2017, ASTA 2018, Sustainable Tourism Village 2020	Proklim 2018 and 2019, Sustainable Tourism Village 2020.	Anugrah Desa Wisata 2021, Sustainable Tourism Village 2020.	Sustainable Tourism Village 2020.
Product/ Services	Cultural Tourism, Trading, Culinary, Art & Craft.	Agrotourism, Creative Tourism, Edu-tourism, Trading, Culinary, Art & Craft.	Geotourism, Ekotourism, Agrotourism, Trading, Culinary, Art & Craft.	Natural Tourism, Trading, Culinary, Art & Craft.	Natural Tourism, Creative Tourism, Culinary, Art & Craft.	Edu-tourism, Eco Tourism, Culinary, Art & Craft.

3.3. Data collection and analysis

The data was gathered from semi-structured interviews on-site and online with local stakeholders September—November 2021. The participant of the interview is the actors in the tourism village who have played a role in a successful tourism village program. The participants know the condition of the village and are directly involved in the activities and management of their tourism villages. They are able to explain and answer the questions given and interpret them clearly. Table 4 shows the participant profile and the location of tourism villages.

This study conducted content analysis in describing the finding from the collected data to get a better understanding of the case study. Triangulation was used to validate the data (Saunders et al., 2019). It involves comparing the information from different sources (Newing, 2011). This study uses a range of different participants (see, Table 4) to get variety of data sources for study. The participants’ responses will be compared to one another to get validity and reliability. Furthermore, data saturation is reached when there is enough information to replicate the study, when the ability to obtain additional new information has been attained, and when further coding is no longer feasible.

4. Findings and discussion

4.1. Finding

The Finding section presents the cases studies of the implementation of the tourism villages of Panglipuran, Pujon Kidul, Nglanggeran, Candirejo, Sesaot, and Batulayang, which have been awarded as sustainable tourism villages in Indonesia.

Panglipuran is one of the sustainable tourism villages located in Bali Province, Indonesia. The village is located at an altitude of 500–625 meters above sea level and has a very cool climate. The population is 1008 people or 238 families. This is a traditional village, rich in various cultures and traditions, surrounded by a cool, clean, and beautiful environment. The village has a unique spatial layout based on the Tri Mandala concept. Its area is divided into three zones, namely, a zone for sacred places (Parahyangan), a residential zone (Pawongan), and a zone for graves, agriculture, animal husbandry, and so on (Palemahan). One of the customary norms that still persist is the enactment of regulations prohibiting all types of motorized vehicles and bicycles from passing on the main village road. At the beginning of the tourism village program, 34,506 tourists visited and the numbers rose again in the following year to 41,096. In 2014, it can be said that there was a significant increase in the number of tourists to 64,402. In 2016 and 2017, the Panglipuran tourism village received a skyrocketing number of tourists, touching numbers in the hundreds of thousands. In 2016, 115,580 tourists visited, which rose to 182,969 in 2017. The turnover achieved also increased from year to year, along with the increase in the number of tourists. In 2015, the turnover of the Panglipuran management was recorded at more than Rp. 1.53 billion, which increased in the following year by more than Rp. 2.38 billion. In 2017, there was a high increase in turnover up to more than Rp. 5.6 billion. The entire turnover that has been achieved does not include festival turnover and the turnover of food and souvenirs sold by the public directly. Panglipuran has won various awards, both at the district, provincial, national, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and world levels. Panglipuran can provide Regency’s Original Regional Revenue (PAD) of around Rp. 3.7 billion in one year.

Pujon Kidul is located in East Province, Indonesia. Pujon Kidul tourism village has received many awards, namely Sustainable Tourism Village Award in 2020, Indonesian Tourism Village Award (ADWI) in 2021, Indonesia Sustainable Tourism Award (ISTA) in 2018, Best Agro Tourism Village in 2017, and Creative Tourism Village in 2019. This tourism village is popular for agrotourism, creative tourism, and edu-tourism. Since Pujon Kidul Tourism Village has potential resources such as agriculture and farm, the main attraction in this area related to agrotourism and farm activity. People who visit Pujon Kidul Tourism Village can do vegetable picking activities, cow milking activity, harvest activity, horse riding, and also have lunch at restaurant in the rice field. The total population is 4,121. One of the interesting things in Pujon Kidul Village is the entire restaurant owned by community member. It is become tourism village business unit and manage by village-owned enterprise (BUMDES). Community members participate to identify tourism village potential resources, get train regarding tourism activity, and how to communicate with tourist. In 2021, there was a high increase in turnover up to more than Rp. 1.4 Billion Rupiah.

Nglanggeran is one of the tourism villages located in Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia. The Nglanggeran tourism village has received an award from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Community-Based Tourism in 2017, the ASEAN Sustainable Tourism Award 2018, a certificate for being a 2021 sustainable tourism village, etc. The main attraction of this village is Mount Nglanggeran, an ancient volcano. Additionally, there are natural attractions such as waterfalls, as well as other tourist activities such as handicrafts, batik masks, chocolate processing, etc. The main livelihood of most is farming and ranching. One of the interesting things in the tourist village of Nglanggeran is that in 2014, tourist visits reached a peak of 325,303 with a turnover of 1.4 billion. Furthermore, in 2019, although tourist visits reached only 103,107, the turnover multiplied to 3.2 billion. Moreover, Nglanggeran Tourism Village has as its motto “glorifying the earth’s heritage, prospering the local community”.

Candirejo is one of the tourism villages located in Central Java Province, Indonesia. The village is located 4 km east of the Borobudur Temple complex. In addition, Candirejo offers stunning natural attractions with a blend of the Menoreh mountain landscape and an unspoiled rural atmosphere. It has an area of 366.25 ha, and a population of 4321 people, which is administratively divided into 15 hamlets. Tourism activities are fully managed by the Candirejo Tourism Village Cooperative (koperasi), which is a village-owned enterprise (BUMDES).

Sesaot is located in West Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia. This village has potential in the form of springs, community forest areas, its cuisine, non-timber forest products such as fruits consisting of bananas, mangosteen, durian, rambutan, taro, and cassava, etc. Based on this potential, the local community has come up with ideas to develop it into something of economic value. One example of the development carried out is to form groups of home industries to make a product.

Batulayang tourism village is located in West Java Province, Indonesia. It has educational tours for making handicrafts from various kinds of food and beverage waste raw materials that produce beautiful works of art. Additionally, it provides educational programs on managing waste, which is called a waste bank. Moreover, some villages in the hills are quite beautiful, with forests that are still alive with their natural surroundings. The Cimandala River has beautiful waterfalls (twin waterfalls). Moreover, Batulayang offers tourist experiences such as beautiful landscape views, camping ground, outbound, and cultural education, such as batik with natural dyes, jaipong and angklung cultural arts, garbage education, as well as homestays and lodging. Furthermore, the advantage of Batulayang is that it is close to the capital city of Indonesia.

Those six tourism villages implement rural tourism entrepreneurship and gain success to make their villages sustain. In the beginning, SHT, INM, AZN, ADR, IKS, and TTK mentioned that local people in the villages give each other encouragement and strengthened internal cooperation by sitting together to discuss various matters such as identify village potential resources, analyze problem in the village, discuss to find solution, and make a commitment together.

They make an effort to identify the potential resources in the village. INM said that “we identify the potential resource in the village together with the local people, whether it is tangible or non-tangible resources”. In addition, SHT explained that “our village works with a number of universities to identify the potential of the village and foster innovation”. In line with INM and SHT, TTK said that “people in the village discuss together to explore the strength of the village then confirm with some of the universities”. On the other hand, AZN, ADR and IKS argued that “sometimes they don’t realize the potential of their villages so they need some help from local government, communities or third party”.

Moreover, they try to analyze problem in the village that they face and what will come next when they implement rural tourism entrepreneurship. In economic point of view, IKS mentioned that “Previously, most of livelihood is farming; our incomes depend on agriculture, at that time we still don’t know how to run rural tourism entrepreneurship adjoining with agriculture”. In addition, SHT said that “the local people worry about the applied price for visitors who come to the village, previously”. Subsequently, IKS and ADR added that “the local people worry about how to handle income from visitors”. Moreover, INM and TTK explained that in their village, they worry about seasonal income from tourism that might be happened in unexpected situation and condition. For example those villages have already experienced covid-19 pandemic situation.

In the term of social barrier, INM mentioned that they face human resource barrier especially knowledge and skill related to rural tourism entrepreneurship. In addition, TTK, AZN, and IKS said that in their village they face difficulties to communicate with different stakeholder to develop their rural tourism products and services. Subsequently, SHT explained that “the local people lack of creativity and ability to innovate.” ADR added that “the local people worry to communicate with visitor.”

Moreover, they faced environmental barrier, ADR found that “their environment dirty and lots of litter. AZN added that ‘the environment in the village needs to be cleaned as there still many trash in the street’. According to INM ‘the village need to maintain people awareness to keep the resources sustain’. On the other hand, TTK, SHT, and INM explained that if there are many visitors come to their villages, it will make the environment crowded.”

As mentioned above, they face problem previously and try to analyze what the possible problem they will face in the future. However, they try to find the solution as well as prevent it to make tourism village sustain. In the term of economic barrier, they found some solution, IKS and ADR explained that “local people who contribute in tourism entrepreneurship activities has no worry about the price given to tourist as the tourism village management handle it”. On the other hand, SHT added from visitor point of view that “people who visit tourism village feel convenience as the price being standardize”. Subsequently, according to IKS “Previously, most of livelihood in the village is farming, after this tourism village develops, they can get additional income from tourism”. It is also experienced in ADR village that “the village gain profit from tourist”. Another example from IKS village “local people as an entrepreneur contribute to develop business unit by rented their house to the tourist”. In line with IKS, SHT mentioned that “the development of business unit year by year can create income for local people in the village”. Moreover, INM talked about the solution for experienced that the village faced regarding seasonal income from tourism that happened in unexpected situation and condition, for example the covid-19 pandemic situation “ … … every tourism activity in the village set aside money for unexpected things.” In addition, to overcome seasonal income SHT, AZN, ADR, IKS added “Tourism village develop business unit that make product creativity such as local handicraft or innovation in local food package … … …”

Furthermore, they found solution to overcome social barrier. IKS mentioned that “we can success to manage this village because we learn from the mistake and can fix it together”. In addition, INM said “people in tourism village do mutual cooperation in order to optimize tourism … ”. IKS added, “ … mutual cooperation is the key important thing”. Subsequently, according to SHT, “the people in tourism village support each other to develop the village”. Moreover, INM, AZN, SHT explained that local people give each other encouragement and strengthened internal cooperation by sitting together to discuss various matters such as tourism activities to improve tourism village in the future as well as overcome social barrier in the term of covid-19 pandemic situation.

However, TTK stated that “tourism village also collaborates with a number of universities to foster creativity and improve marketing strategies”. In addition, INM mentioned “Penglipuran tourism village collaborates with private sectors such as BRI, BCA, Mandiri, etc. & get funds for the purpose of assisting communities in expanding their businesses and environment”. Subsequently, ADR and IKS argued that the villages “ … … try to increase collaboration with local governments, universities, communities and third parties. SHT, AZN, ADR added that the tourism villages promote its products through cooperation and collaboration with stakeholders. Furthermore, INM asserted “the key success factors of program in tourism village are the potential of human resources and collaboration.” especially in unexpected situation such as covid-19 pandemic situation.

Other than those mention above, TTK argued that “local people do innovation to develop tourism product or services”. In line with TTK, some of participant such as SHT, INM, and AZN said that the villages created product and service innovations to be implemented in the villages. SHT added that in order to foster innovation, the tourism village also works with a number of universities. Other than that, most of participants such as SHT, AZN, ADR, and IKS explained that tourism village develop business unit that make product creativity such as local handicraft or innovation in local food package. AZN confirmed that “local people creativity developed to create handicraft for tourist”. ADR added that “handicraft such as key chain and wicker craft made by local people can be sold in kiosk”.

Furthermore, those 6 villages found solution to overcome environmental barrier and acknowledge as success factors. AZN stated that “in order to make tourist comfortable, people do mutual cooperation to make environment clean”. ADR added that “local people try to not littering”. In addition, INM mentioned that the village has to return to repair and maintain its environment, such as working together to clean up trash. Subsequently, TTK and ADR said that local people hold discussions to strengthen environmental awareness.

Moreover, they explained another success factor in implementing rural tourism entrepreneurship for sustainable tourism village. IKS stated “potential tourism resources in the village could be explore wisely as well as improve quality of life in rural area”. In addition, INM mentioned that people awareness to keep the resources sustain is important. Subsequently, in line with the other participants, AZN and IKS said that the villages have to manage resources wisely. Furthermore, INM, SHT, and TTK asserted that “management tries to make visitor arrangement to avoid crowd in tourism villages”. So that, INM and SHT added that “tourist who will visit the village expected to do booking before it” Therefore, the entire participant agreed that rural tourism entrepreneurship will create sustainable tourism village.

4.2. Discussion

According to the interview outcome, the study results revealed several significant findings. Table 6 shows an overview of the findings.

Table 6. The success factors of rural tourism entrepreneurship

Participant	Statement	Main Category	Principal Coding	Selective Coding
IKS, ADR	“local people who contribute in tourism entrepreneurship activities has no worry about the price given to tourist as the tourism village management handle it”	Income Management	Economic	Rural Tourism Entrepreneurship Success Factors for Sustainable Tourism Village
SHT	”people who visit tourism village feel convenience as the price being standardize”
TTK	“Previously, most of livelihood is farming, after this tourism village develops, they can get additional income from tourism”.
INM	… … every tourism activity in the village set aside money for unexpected things
IKS	“local people as an entrepreneur contribute to develop business unit by rented their house to the tourist”	Business Unit Development	Economic
SHT	“the development of business unit year by year can create income for local people in the village”
SHT, AZN, ADR,IKS	Tourism village develop business unit that make product creativity such as local handicraft or innovation in local food package … … …
ADR	“tourism village is not only proud because achieve the national competition, but also gain profit from tourist”	Economic Growth	Economic
SHT	“Every year, tourism village gain significant increase revenue and able to open other business units”.
IKS	“we can success to manage this village because we learn from the mistake and can fix it together”	Mutual Cooperation	Social
INM	”people in tourism village do mutual cooperation in order to optimize tourism potential resources”
IKS	“the potential of resources and mutual cooperation are the key important thing”
SHT	“the people in tourism village support each other to develop the village”
INM, AZN,SHT	local people in the villages give each other encouragement and strengthened internal cooperation by sitting together to discuss various matters such as identify village potential resources, analyze problem in the village, discuss to find solution, and make a commitment together.
SHT, AZN, ADR	the tourism villages promote its products through cooperation and collaboration with stakeholders
TTK	“tourism Village also collaborates with a number of universities to foster creativity and improve marketing strategies”	Collaboration	Social
INM	”the key success factors of program in tourism village is the potential of human resources and collaboration”
INM	“Penglipuran tourism village collaborates with private sectors such as BRI, BCA, Mandiri, etc. & get funds for the purpose of assisting communities in expanding their businesses and environment”
SHT	“tourism village works with a number of universities to identify the potential of the village and foster innovation”
ADR, IKS	… … try to increase collaboration with local governments, universities, communities and third parties.
SHT, AZN, ADR	Promote tourism village products through cooperation and collaboration with stakeholders.
TTK	”people do innovation to develop tourism product or services”	Innovation	Social
SHT	“tourism village also works with a number of universities to foster innovation”
SHT, INM,AZN	… … .creating product and service innovations that will be implemented in villages
SHT, AZN, ADR,IKS	Tourism village develop business unit that make product creativity such as local handicraft or innovation in local food package … … …
AZN	“local people creativity developed to create handicraft for tourist”	Creativity	Social
ADR	“handicraft such as key chain and wicker craft made by local people can be sold in kiosk”
SHT, AZN, ADR,IKS	Tourism village develop business unit that make product creativity such as local handicraft or innovation in local food package … … …
ADR	“people try to not littering”	Environmental Awareness	Environment
AZN	“in order to make tourist comfortable, people do mutual cooperation to make environment clean”
INM	the village actually had the opportunity to return to repair and maintain its environment, such as working together to clean up trash
TTK,ADR	Local people have the opportunity to hold discussions to strengthen environmental awareness.
IKS	“potential tourism resources in the village could be explore wisely as well as improve quality of life in rural area”	Resource Management	Environment
INM	“people awareness to keep the resources sustain is important”
ADR,AZN	“the expected positive impact from rural tourism entrepreneurship is to provide sustainable tourism village”
AZN,IKS	they can discuss how to manage resources wisely
INM, SHT, TTK	“management try to make visitor arrangement”	Visitor Management	Environment
INM,SHT	“tourist who will visit the village expected to do booking before it”

Economic Sustainability. Those 6 tourism villages face some barrier in economic and success to overcome it by implementing rural tourism entrepreneurship. Previously, most of the villages rely on agriculture, but when they experienced crop failure or they cannot sell agriculture products, they didn’t have other income. It made low job opportunities in the village. Subsequently, the villages face depopulation issues as the local people especially young generation move out of the village. Those 6 villages implemented rural tourism entrepreneurship and can create job opportunities so that the local people can gain other income and overcome depopulation issues. This corresponds well with the statement of Lekhanya and Visser (2016) that rural entrepreneurship is one of the most obvious options for developing rural areas and eliminating the problem of unemployment. Moreover, rural entrepreneurship plays a key role in providing job opportunities (Newbery, 2017). The local people created tourism activities in the village, such as fruit and vegetable picking, bathing the buffalo, milking the cow, horse riding, plowing the fields and planting rice. Therefore, the local people can take part in those activities as someone who guides to carry out the activities or interpret the process. In this respect, they implement rural tourism activities adjoining with agriculture. However, it create economic sustainability as they can still working on farm as usual but they created new value by implementing those rural tourism activities.

On the other hand, while rural tourism activities run, the local people worried about how to handle income from visitors and the applied price for visitors who come to the village. Those tourism villages create income management as one of the success factors in implementing rural tourism entrepreneurship for sustainable tourism village. In this respect, income management is a tool that helps village communities budget their welfare as well as helps them to arrange the standardize price in term of tourism activities. However, it can make tourism villages’ economic sustain as well as make community member, and people who visit tourism village convenient. It can be seen from the facts that community member who contribute in tourism activity has no worry about the price given to tourist as the tourism village management handle it. In addition, from the point of people who visit tourism village, they feel convenience as the price being standardize. This is in line with (Asmelash & Kumar, 2020) that mentioned price-related issues are affecting tourist satisfaction. Furthermore, when the villages experienced covid-19 pandemic, the villages was able to survive because of the savings funds collected in the village-owned enterprise manager or tourism village manager, where before the Covid 19 pandemic occurred, every tourism activity in their village set aside money for unexpected things. Those things made the tourism village sustainable in the economic especially when the unexpected thing such as Covid-19 pandemic occurred. However, it can be seen that income management is one of the necessary factors to the success of rural tourism entrepreneurship for sustainable tourism village.

Moreover, the results show that business unit development is one of the success factors in implementing rural tourism entrepreneurship for sustainable tourism development. In this study, business unit development is developing separate division within local enterprise to optimize and empower community business as well as increase village community’s income (Dhewanto et al., 2020). It can be seen from the facts that the development of business unit in tourism village that engage with the community member as an entrepreneur, can make tourism village sustain in term of economic sustainability. For example, local people can rent their houses to the visitor as a guesthouse; provide food and drink such as restaurant or coffee shop; provide local transportation such as trishaw, bicycle, motorcycle, hansom cab. Hence, rural tourism entrepreneurship can generate income for local people in the tourism village. It implies that when business units develop well; they will create income for the local people. On the other hand, the covid-19 pandemic impact village’s income from tourism as the regulation prohibits people to visit tourism village. However, the villages can overcome it because they develop business unit that make product creativity such as local handicraft or innovation in local food package and promote it through cooperation and collaboration with stakeholders. This is in line with Chandra Paul et al. (2014) who stated that rural entrepreneurship is acknowledged as a major source of economic growth. Furthermore, in other nations, such as Europe, entrepreneurship is one of the key drivers of rural area economic development (Pato, 2020). Meanwhile, in Vietnam, entrepreneurship plays a role in socio-economic diversification (Lekhanya & Visser, 2016). Hence, business unit development is the success factor in implementing rural tourism entrepreneurship for sustainable tourism village.

Furthermore, rural tourism entrepreneurship is a tool for economic growth. It could be seen from the result of this study that tourism villages earn income from tourists who visit the village. Moreover, the village gains a significant increase in revenue and is able to open other business units from rural tourism entrepreneurship. This finding is supported by the research of Muthu (2020) which mentions that rural entrepreneurship is the key to the growth of the local economy. Additionally, Singh and Bhowmick (2015) revealed that in the rural context, it leads to economic development.

Based on the analysis above, it can be said that rural tourism entrepreneurship has a positive relationship with economic sustainability in the context of tourism villages. However, many countries have the fact that rural entrepreneurship is a key factor in enhancing the quality of life, job creation, and economic growth (Chandra Paul et al., 2014). This is in line with Korsgaard and Müller (2015) that stated entrepreneurship is linked to rural tourism development and is considered a driver of economic development. Furthermore, it can be seen that income management, business development, and economic growth are the key success factors of rural tourism entrepreneurship for sustainable tourism village.

Social Sustainability. The finding shows that mutual cooperation is one of the factors considered the important thing in implementing rural tourism entrepreneurship. In this respect, mutual cooperation means communication among local people, support each other, or sitting together with local stakeholder to discuss various matters. This is in line with Jakosuo (2011) which mention about cooperation that involve local actors to develop its region. It can be seen from the fact that the village succeeded in managing rural tourism entrepreneurship because the community learnt from the mistake and tried to fix it together. In addition, they mutually cooperated to optimize tourist potential resources. However, they cooperated internally in tourism village that enhance community member participation in order to implement rural tourism entrepreneurship for sustainable tourism village. For example, according to the participants, they said that at the start of the covid 19 pandemic, some people in villages feel demotivated. Subsequently, the local people give each other encouragement and strengthened internal cooperation by sitting together to discuss various matters such as tourism activities to improve village tourism in the future. Moreover, the villages can create product and service innovations that will be implemented in villages. This keeps the people in the village enthusiastic, trying to improve the quality of the village in a better direction and is socially sustainable. Therefore, one of the key important things in implementing rural tourism entrepreneurship is managing potential resources and mutual cooperation in tourism village. This is in line with López et al. (2019) that stated cooperation with local actors should be strengthened to keep tourism village sustain.

Moreover, collaboration is one of the prominent success factors in launching rural tourism entrepreneurship. In this study, collaboration defined as the partnership with non-local stakeholder such as universities, third parties, or non-profit organizations. This is in line with Pilving et al. (2019) which mention that collaboration involve local actor to make relationship with private, public and non-profit organization in different partnership. The villages make collaboration with several universities to explore potential tangible and intangible resources such as natural, cultural, human, or physical resources. Then the village can develop agro tourism, ecotourism, geotourism, cultural tourism, creative tourism, edutourism, etc. Moreover, the villages’ success to overcome human resource barrier, especially knowledge and skill related to rural tourism entrepreneurship by collaborated with universities and local government. This is in line with Shimoli et al. (2020) that stated in order to gain success in entrepreneurship, it is important to overcome human resources barrier. In doing so, the tourism villages collaborates with universities and local government to conduct several training to develop local people skills and knowledge such as communication skill, travel pattern, tourist characteristics, interpretation, tourism knowledge, service, leadership, basic management, promotion, cleanliness, health, safety, as well as environment sustainability. Additionally, they collaborate with third parties such as financial institutions for funding to help communities expand their business. However, they make collaboration with external stakeholder in order to implement rural tourism entrepreneurship for sustainable tourism village. Furthermore, collaboration with external stake holder is one of the prominent success factors.

Other than that, innovation and creativity are needed for the success of rural tourism entrepreneurship. In rural context, innovation is the action to give new way for solving the problem of rural people. Simiarly, Popescu (2014) and Singh and Bhowmick (2015) notes that innovation is usually associated with doing something new to get new product, process or method. Communities can innovate to develop tourism products and services. It is in line with Markovic and Sebrek (2020) which stated that rural tourism must provide a high level of service quality in order to sustain and stay competitive. Moreover, communities should improve their creativity by creating handicrafts for tourists, which can be sold in kiosks. Creativity means improve or co-create the product or service that already exist (Tan et al., 2013).

Environmental Sustainability. The villages faced environmental barrier such as there were a lot of litters and trash in the street. In the context of a tourism village, the local people success to apply the habit of not littering, and try to educate each other to keep the village clean. Moreover, communities can mutually cooperate to keep the environment clean, as it makes the tourist comfortable as well as develop their quality of life. Furthermore, when the villages experienced the COVID-19 pandemic, the village actually had the opportunity to return to repair and maintain its environment, such as working together to clean up trash. In addition, the local people have the opportunity to hold discussions to strengthen environmental awareness. Also they can discuss how to manage resources wisely. This makes the village environmentally sustainable.

Regarding other factors, resources management is important to be implemented by tourism village. For example, at that time the villages could run tourism activities and many visitors came to the villages. On the other hand, the local people exploited their natural resources without plan and make the natural resources damaged. In this respect, resources management is important to be applied to make the tourism villages sustainable. Resource management associated to the communities that should use resources wisely to make it sustain and cost-effective (Mc Morran et al., 2014). It could be applied by developing the awareness of communities related to the resources in a tourism village. It is in line with Hartnett and Gorman (2022) which stated that participation, motivation and initiation of the communities takes important part. They should sustain the resources and explore them wisely. This plan should be implemented to obtain a positive impact from rural tourism entrepreneurship in a tourism village. However, resources management is one of the success factors in implementing rural tourism entrepreneurship for sustainable tourism village.

Furthermore, visitor management is also a necessary factor to be considered regarding rural tourism entrepreneurship. Visitor management can be defined as the way to control the duration of visit and number of visitors in specific times (ILO, 2012). However, it can be applied by making visitor arrangements to avoid crowds in the tourism village. Also, tourists who visit the village should be expected to book in advance. It will make the environment sustainable.

4.3. The model of rural tourism entrepreneurship for sustainable tourism village

However, based on the discussion above, it could create a model of rural tourism entrepreneurship for sustainable tourism village. It could be seen in the inner box of Figure 1 that the aim of rural tourism entrepreneurship is creating sustainable tourism village. It means that the activity, strategy, and everything related to rural tourism entrepreneurship should consider long-term tourism village development.

Figure 1. The model of rural tourism entrepreneurship for sustainable tourism village.

In order to create sustainable tourism village, need to consider several success factors based on three sustainability dimensions (economy, social, environment). In the economic dimension; income management, business unit development, and economic growth factors are important to achieve sustainability. Moreover, the social dimension consists of mutual cooperation, collaboration, innovation, and creativity factors. Furthermore, the environment dimension consists of environmental awareness, resource management, and visitor management. However, this is in line with the statement of UNWTO (2021) mentioning that sustainable rural tourism should consider economic sustainability, social sustainability, and environmental sustainability.

However, in order to create sustainable tourism village, those success factors are important to be implemented. Income management help to manage and ensuring the income allocated in a better way. Business unit development in this study means develop separate division within local enterprise to optimize and empower community business as well as increase village community’s income. Economic growth in this study defined as the process by which a wealth increases over time. Mutual cooperation in this respect means communication among local people, support each other, or sitting together with local stakeholder to discuss various matters. Collaboration in this study defined as the partnership with non-local stakeholder such as universities, third parties, or non-profit organizations. Innovation in this rural context is the action to give new way for solving the problem of rural people. Creativity means improve or co-create the product or service that already exists. Environmental awareness is having understanding human behavior impacts on the environment and concerning of its protection. Resources management in this respect associated to the communities that should use resources wisely to make it sustain and cost-effective. Visitor management can be defined as the way to control the duration of visit and number of visitors in specific times.

Furthermore, the model suggests cooperation and collaboration between actors in a tourism village to implement rural tourism entrepreneurship. There are village-owned enterprises, tourism communities, universities, third parties such as financial companies, and local governments. Village-owned enterprise (BUMDES) is one of the rural entrepreneurship programs in Indonesia. This program implementation has a robust relationship with community based enterprises concept. Community based enterprises can be established based on the entrepreneurial activities of local people, using their own resources. Village-owned enterprise is a form of village economic independence by transferring strategic business units to be jointly owned by the village by allocating village resources and empowering local community businesses and increasing village community income. Village-owned enterprise has contributed to rural development through empowerment and economic growth. In addition, tourism community is a form of community that committed to assisting the government in developing the world of tourism, such as carry out tourism driving function and increase village tourism development. Moreover, local government in this study means the regional government that related to rural tourism entrepreneurship. University means as institution of higher education which can help to develop and overcome tourism village barrier with their ability to research. Third party in this study means private sectors such as financial institutions that help communities to get fund in expanding their businesses and environment.

5. Conclusion

The results of this study have theoretical and practical implications. This study gives the first attempt to explore rural tourism entrepreneurship success factors for sustainable tourism villages with the case study from 6 tourism villages which have already sustained. It provides a model of rural tourism entrepreneurship for sustainable tourism village in which the other tourism villages could implement. Furthermore, this model is not only offering the success factors but also the actors in supporting rural tourism entrepreneurship for sustainable tourism village.

The finding generalizability of this study and its implication should be viewed in two limitations. First, the scope of this study is limited in the 6 sustainable tourism villages in Indonesia. Future studies in multiple countries may show a higher level of validity. Secondly, the quantitative method might be needed to test the framework and the correlation between factors.

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Lembaga Pengelola Dana Pendidikan (Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education) [grant numbers 202001210415852]

Notes on contributors

Dwiesty Dyah Utami

Dwiesty Dyah Utami Institut Teknologi Bandung, School of Business and Management, Bandung, Indonesia.

Wawan Dhewanto

Wawan Dhewanto Institut Teknologi Bandung, School of Business and Management, Bandung, Indonesia

Yuliani Dwi Lestari

Yuliani Dwi Lestari Institut Teknologi Bandung, School of Business and Management, Bandung, Indonesia