Ir. Antony Sihombing, MPD., Ph.D
University of Indonesia

Dr. Jajang Gunawijaya
University of Indonesia

Poeti Nazura Gulfira Akbar, S.T., M.Sc
University of Indonesia

Over the last few years, rural tourism has been increasingly viewed as a panacea for improving the economic benefits of rural communities in Indonesia. One of the main focuses in developing rural tourism is to encourage participation of local communities. While many scholars are concerned with a number of roles local communities could take in tourism development, few have reported how local communities themselves perceive and are aware of their role(s) in tourism development. Therefore, this paper examines local communities’ perceived awareness of their role in rural tourism development and assesses their knowledge of sustainable tourism principles. Differences in awareness and knowledge within resident groups based on their occupation are also examined.

The findings reveal that local communities recognize and acknowledge the need to be involved in tourism development. Almost all of the respondents were not only aware of their important role in tourism development but also had high levels of knowledge of sustainable tourism principles. Furthermore, this study found that the perceived awareness of local communities’ role in tourism had influenced their perceived knowledge of sustainable tourism principles. Similar to previous studies, this study discovered that profession could not be used to differentiate residents’ awareness, as differences were not found between respondents who work in tourism and those who do not.