Power in community-based tourism: empowerment and partnership in Bali

In a tourism industry historically dominated by outside influences, the
island of Bali has striven for greater local resident involvement.
Community-based tourism (CBT) has thereby become an increasingly
preferred tourism development approach rooted in promises of more
inclusive opportunities for community empowerment, a notion reflected
in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Drawing upon SDG17
– Partnerships for the Goals – and specifically focusing on SDG17.9 –
Capacity building, SDG17.14 – Enhancing policy coherence for sustainable
development, and SDG17.16 and SDG17.17 – Multi-stakeholder partnerships,
this paper investigates the “social empowerment” that results from
interactions between CBT actors, and the factors that support or hinder
residents’ empowerment through CBT in rural Bali. This paper presents
empirical evidence from an ethnographic study in three villages at different
stages of tourism development. Through a generative conceptualisation
of power, embedded in the rather hierarchical Balinese socio-cultural
context, this paper contributes new understandings of empowerment
in CBT, particularly the extent to which partnerships and collaborations
create spaces for residents’ empowerment and greater inclusion for
sustainable CBT development, in line with Agenda 2030.