Community Empowerment for Community-Based Tourism Development in the Border Region of Timor-Leste: A Case Study of Atabae Sub-District

Abstract

This research consists purposes were 1. explore the challenges of the tourism industry in the Atabae Sub-district of Bobonaro, Timor-Leste and 2. analyze how community empowerment can help in creating Community-Based Tourism in the Atabae Sub-district of Bobonaro, Timor-Leste. This research was applied qualitative approach to collect data, investigate procedures, and gain a thorough understanding of community empowerment in managing community-based tourism (CBT). The primary data were collected in the Atabae sub-district by interviews several sectors involving in tourism industry, including 8 local tourism business owners, and 5 government officials, both local (2) and national authorities (3). Also, the documentary research was also applied secondary sources of data to understand tourism context, especially regarding CBT of Timor-Leste. Then both primary and secondary data were collected from the government documents, literature and interviews are analyzed to assess the situation, significance, and challenges of CBT in Atabae sub-district. The research results found that 1) CBT development in Atabae sub-district are facing several challenges. The first challenge is weak community involvement in tourism development. The second challenge is Inadequate community capacity in tourism development. The third challenge is Insufficient tourism infrastructure and services. The fourth challenge is Environmental unsustainability. The fifth challenge is Limited access and promotion of tourism markets. The Sixth challenge is Insufficient regulatory and policy framework. Lastly, Inadequate community financial resources and 2) the community empowerment could be encouraged in several possible ways, including increasing roles of the local government to support and find out the financial resources for the tourism development, to promote capacity building of local community, and to encourage participatory development.