FROM TOURISM TO VILLAGE DEVELOPMENT: POLICY DIFFERENTIATION IN MULTILEVEL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING IN BANYUMAS AND CILACAP

Abstract

Tourism is increasingly positioned as part of Indonesia’s development agenda, not only as a sector contributing to economic growth but also as an instrument for strengthening local economies and promoting community-based development. In a decentralized system of government, national tourism development priorities do not necessarily result in uniform policies across regions. Instead, these priorities undergo processes of interpretation and adjustment according to regional characteristics, development orientations, and institutional arrangements in each region. This study examines how national tourism priorities are translated into regional development planning documents and how policy differentiation emerges in tourism development in Banyumas Regency and Cilacap Regency. The study employs a qualitative approach through a comparative document analysis of development planning documents at the national, provincial, and regency levels. These documents include the 2025–2045 National Long-Term Development Plan (RPJPN), the 2025–2029 National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN), the Ministry of Tourism’s 2025–2029 Strategic Plan, the 2025–2029 Regional Medium-Term Development Plan of Central Java Province, and tourism-related development planning documents in Banyumas Regency and Cilacap Regency. The analysis focuses on four dimensions: the position of tourism within the development agenda, development directions, policy instruments, and the characteristics of local policy differentiation. The findings reveal a shift in policy orientation from the national level to the local level. At the national level, tourism is primarily positioned as an instrument of economic transformation. At the provincial level, this orientation is translated into a region-based development approach, with the strengthening of tourism villages serving as one of the instruments for local economic development. At the regency level, Banyumas emphasizes the links between tourism villages, Village-Owned Enterprises (BUMDes), Tourism Awareness Groups (Pokdarwis), local culture, and community economic empowerment. Cilacap, meanwhile, combines tourism villages with agrotourism, local products, and community empowerment. These differences indicate that a single policy framework can produce different local policy orientations through processes of adaptation to regional characteristics and development priorities. Tourism villages, therefore, serve not only as instruments for tourism development but also as an empirical lens through which to understand how decentralization operates through planning processes and policy adaptation at the local level.