Defining Wellness-Focused Design for Rural Tourism: Study Case of Penanggungan Village

Abstract

Rural tourism has great potential in enhancing the local welfare in Indonesia regions. It offers natural environment and authentic experience for tourists in improving health and wellbeing. Architectural design can play an important role to promote wellness in rural tourism as a branding strategy. Healthy design guidelines are required to enhance healthy benefits of rural living without neglecting the local culture and identity. Thus, wellness-focused design of tourism village should consider contextual aspects aligned with vernacular design principles. This study investigates how rural tourism can promote wellness through architectural design ideation considering vernacular principles. It aims to formulate wellness-focused design concept of tourism village based on a case study of Penanggungan village, Mojokerto, Indonesia. Literature study was carried out to conceptualize the basic design concepts of healthy rural tourism. Field observations and interviews were also conducted to contextualize the findings from literature study. This study produces design principles for developing healthy tourism village: (1) Healthy Product as a core of agrotourism, (2) Healthy Environment signifying attachment on nature, (3) Healthy Lifestyle reflecting the enjoyment of simple rural life, and (4) Healthy image as an icon representing healthy rural life. The implementation of these design principles is also discussed.