Tourism Market Analysis in Badung Peripheral Areas

The peripheral areas in Badung Regency have a comparative advantage with the tourism centers, because the area is relatively genuine, provide new experiences, and has not been exploited. The development of tourism in the peripheral areas as apart being diversifying tourism products in the Badung Regency is also seen as an instrument for the development of the peripheral region itself. At the regional level, tourism development in peripheral areas is seen as being able to reduce disparities between the center and periphery. While at the local level, tourism development is utilized to control changes in the character of the locality and open up opportunities for the diversity of economic bases in peripheral areas, especially in rural areas. However, the peripheral community always an object, and its presence are very limited in tourism development. These limitations, seen from the low level of local community participation in tourism development. Such reality results in communities in the peripheral areas being in a weakened position and then becoming powerless especially in the development of tourism products.

Tourism products can be developed based on the attractions based posses by the local community and the suitability with the targeted market. The basis of attraction in this context is the pull factor of visits to peripheral areas. While the suitability of the market means selecting appropriate tourists from who have been visiting peripheral areas, especially the tourist villages in the Northern Badung. The selection is beneficial for getting tourists following the base of attractions offered or referred to as quality markets. Based on this, this paper is intended to analyze the right market for peripheral areas in Badung Regency. The existence of the appropriate market could offer consideration to the development of tourism products that guarantee the involvement or participation of local communities, both in decision making or the sharing of tourism benefits.

The peripheral area in this paper refers to the Pangsan Tourism Village located in the northern part of the Badung Regency. In the context of tourism, the northern part is a suburb or periphery of the tourism center located in Southern Badung. The tourism market is recognized from a survey of actual tourists visiting peripheral. The survey was conducted by deal out questionnaires to obtain information about the characteristics of the tourism market in peripheral areas.

A. Source of market

Tourists visiting peripheral areas in Badung Regency are dominated by foreign tourist's advent from Europe. This condition is caused by European tourists tend to be attracted to the natural landscape and culture of local communities that are still sustainable. Furthermore, based on nationality, more than 80% of tourists come from France, the Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, and Italy. It can be argued that these countries are the main tourism markets because they have significant shares to the number of tourists to peripheral areas in Badung Regency. In addition to the European market, the source of peripheral tourism markets also comes from the Asia Pacific, especially Australia and China. Although the number of tourists is small, the two countries are Bali's top tourism markets for the past 10 years, so that they are potential as a target market. This potential market source is more interested in adventure tourism attractions that are quite various in Northern Badung. The findings of the main and potential market of peripheral areas are also propped by the statement of the operator of tourism products which states that "... so far the tourists who consume our products come from France, the Netherlands, and Germany. They are very interested in the local culture in this village and the unspoiled environment. As for rafting and biking activities, besides European tourists are also in demand by Australian...".

B. Demographic character

The population characteristics discussed are age category, occupation, and education. The discussion of demographic character is intended to understand its relationship with the preferences of tourist products that visit peripheral areas in Badung Regency. Based on the year of birth, it can be stated that the peripheral tourism market in Badung Regency is dominated by adult groups. Generally, this group is of productive age, independent, has a stable financial ability, and hopes to find new experiences in their lives. Jobs related to the adult age group are professionals, managerial, and public service who have a relatively solid work routine every day. Furthermore, according to their educational background, most tourists have a high level of education, specifically diplomas and scholars. The market, which is in the adult group, has formal employment, and with a high level of education, is generally synonymous with mature tourists and has knowledge of the tourism destinations visited. Moreover, this type of tourist will choose a tourism destination that is actively undertaking efforts to protect tourism resources, especially natural and cultural. Besides recreation, the motivation of tourists who have this demographic characteristic is to learn about the uniqueness of tourism destinations. Therefore, it is very relevant if the activities carried out during visiting peripheral areas in Badung Regency are in the form of learning about the culture, trying local food, learning about nature, meeting new people, staying in villages, visiting traditional markets, adventuring, and volunteering.

C. Duration

Tourist length of stay in the destination is determined by the preference of tourism products. The survey shows that the average total tourist holiday is 20 nights. However, from the amount of that leisure time, only a small portion is spent visiting peripheral areas in Badung Regency. Most of it is filled with activities and temporary residence in Bali's tourism centers, both in Kuta and Ubud. In other words, visits to peripheral areas in Badung Regency are dominated by day visitors. The implication is that tourist spending patterns in the Badung Regency peripheral areas are still very limited. The lack of tourist spending shows that public participation in the sharing of the financial benefits of tourism is also relatively low.

According to the visitation to peripheral areas in Badung Regency, it can be addressed that the main market sourced from Europe, while the Asia Pacific is a potential market. Both of these markets make significant endowments to the visitation quantity of peripheral tourism in the Badung Regency. But in terms of the quality of the visit, peripheral tourism in Badung Regency has not been able to provide optimal benefits for the local community. The causes are: First, limited leisure time or short of the length of stay. Even though the average night holiday is very potential. This means that the role of the local community is still minimal to create cultural, natural, and adventure tourism products which tend to be the preference of these markets. Second, Tourism in the peripheral areas in Badung Regency is still very dependent on the center of Bali's tourism growth, especially in the Kuta and Ubud areas. This dependency is further strengthened by market limitations and the magnitude of tourism leakage; minimal integration with the daily life of the local community; the capacity of local communities is still low; and centralized planning or decision-making process. In the context of community-based tourism development in the Badung peripheral area, several market characteristics that can be considered to improve the quality of tourism are intensive interaction with local communities; length of stay, and large expenditure; interested in learning local culture; and voluntarily participate in local community activities. | adikampana@unud.ac.id |