When Tourism-Driven Development Challenges Sustainable Tourism: Governance Fragmentation and Institutional Capacity in Borobudur

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-620-8_22How to use a DOI?

Keywords

tourism-driven development; multi-level governance; institutional capacity; sustainable tourism; heritage destination

Abstract

Tourism-led development is being widely used as a national economic strategy, although its ability to deliver sustainable outcomes at the local level is challenged. Borobudur is a National Tourism Strategic Area (KSPN) and super-priority attraction in Indonesia that illustrates this contradiction, as large-scale infrastructure investment outruns local governance capabilities. This study uses a qualitative multiple case study design based on 22 in-depth interviews at the national, regional and village level in three tourism villages, Candirejo, Karangrejo and Wanurejo, to understand how tourism-led development influences sustainable tourism outcomes in this heritage destination. Three structural tensions emerge: regulatory ambiguity in the classification of homestays that limits inclusive economic participation; fragmented multi-level governance that weakens institutional coherence; and uneven institutional capacity that leads to differentiated development trajectories across villages. Taken together these point to the fact that tourism driven development does not automatically lead to sustainable tourism; the outcomes are fundamentally controlled by governance coherence and local institutional preparation. This paper contributes by conceptualising tourism-driven development as a process dependant on governance coherence and institutional capacity, suggesting a transition from infrastructure-led to capacity-oriented initiatives for more inclusive and resilient legacy tourism.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Poeti Nazura Gulfira Akbar
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/23
TI  - When Tourism-Driven Development Challenges Sustainable Tourism: Governance Fragmentation and Institutional Capacity in Borobudur
BT  - Proceedings of the 8th International Conference of Vocational Education, Applied Science and Technology (ICVEAST 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 283
EP  - 292
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-620-8_22
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-620-8_22
ID  - Akbar2026
ER  -