Potential Resources for Development of Sustainable Green Tourism in Sangkan Gunung Village, Karangasem Residency, Bali Province

Abstract

The present tourism trend shows that conventional tourist products begin to lose attractiveness since the tourist shifts interest to more quality tourist activities that allow active involvement. Green tourism with special-interest activities becomes the right offer made to the tourist. A related definition defines green tourism as sustainable tourism, namely tourism which causes no damage in the destination. The village of Sangkan Gunung has a lot of potentials to be developed into products of green tourism which attract tourists with high awareness of the importance of environment in life. The development of green tourism is potential to provide positive impacts for the local community. Utilizing the CBT concept, the local community will necessarily be empowered first whereby to make them aware of their own capability to develop the available local potentials. The objective of this research is to study the various potentials identified within the local tourism-aware community group ('pokdarwis') of Sangkan Gunung village now targeting to establish green tourism in their village. The data is obtained through interview and group discussion using soft system methodology. It is found that there are a lot of natural resources potential for utilization into green tourism in conformity with the present trend of the tourist market demand.