The Roles of Multi-stakeholder Networks in Planning Organisational Change towards Sustainable Tourism: Sustainable Tourism in Lombok, Indonesia

Abstract

Tourism has grown significantly becomes one of the promising sectors to develop the economy. Meanwhile, tourism’s continued progress has led to negative environmental and social effects. These adverse consequences have called for a planning organisational change from tourism as usual to a more sustainable oriented. In addition, a multi-stakeholder engagement has been needed to achieve sustainable tourism goals. The question that arises is: what are the roles of a multi-stakeholder network in planning organisational change for sustainable tourism? Many scholars attempted to explore change management within the multi-stakeholder network towards sustainable tourism, but most of them described the roles of each stakeholder within the multi-stakeholder network in achieving sustainable tourism. This paper aimed to investigate the roles of a multi-stakeholder network in planning organisational change for sustainable tourism. In order to achieve the research objective, the paper used the qualitative approach by analysing the case study area in Lombok Island, as one of famous tourist destinations in Indonesia. A series of interviews were conducted with various stakeholders related to sustainable tourism in Lombok, ranging from the experts, governments, local communities, tourism operators, tourists, and collaborative institutions. The findings showed that the recognition of types of change, drivers to change, barriers to change and strategies to overcome them, the roles of each stakeholder, and the roles of stakeholders’ experiences in sustainable tourism uncovered the roles of a multi-stakeholder network in planning organisational change for sustainable tourism. The multi-stakeholder network bridged the ideas of various stakeholders to solve the sustainable tourism barriers that were not able to be overcome by the established institutions. Therefore, the multi-stakeholder network is expected to help a better institutionalisation process of sustainable tourism.