The Development of Sustainable Tourism Industry in Kilim, Langkawi Times New Roman #
14
Nurul Hikmah Z. 2, Syamsul Herman M.A. 1,2,*, Zaiton S. 1,2, Ahmad S. 3,2 and Nur Syuhada C. I. 2 1 2
Faculty of Forestry,Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Selangor, Malaysia;
Institute of Tropical Forestry and Forest Products (INTROP),43400, Universiti Putra Malaysia,Selangor, Malaysia;
3
Institute of Agricultural and Food Policy Studies (IKDPM), 43400, Universiti Putra Malaysia,Selangor, Malaysia;
Abstract Sustainable tourism is a holistic approach to rural area such as Kilim, Langkawi. This paper discusses on the indicators of positive finding for tourism sectors in Kilim. The study focus on two indicators which are: sustaining tourism satisfaction and economic benefits of tourism. Research methods of this study are based on previous studies and information from tourism management in Kilim. Both indicators show positive feedbacks on tourism activities in Kilim. Local people attain benefits from tourism sector in many ways and this have increase their income and livelihood. The job opportunities also increase as there are economic activities related to tourism sector such as food production and transportation. Tourists also gain enjoyable experience as they are satisfied. The study can provide LADA, the managing agency some feedback on sustainable development for tourism in Kilim, Langkawi. In the mean time, Kilim can be developed into a successful sustainable tourist destination. Keywords: Sustainable Tourism, Sustainable tourism industry, Kilim, Langkawi.
____________________________________ *Corresponding Author: syamsul Herman M.A (
[email protected]) Faculty of Forestry, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Selangor, Malaysia, Phone: +60192358775 Any remaining errors or omissions rest solely with the author(s) of this paper
1
1. Introduction Tourism industry in Malaysia especially in islands has become an important sector (Pazim, 2011). Kilim is a rural area in Langkawi Islands that turns out to be one of the tourist destination. Kilim is a natural area, comprised of mangrove forest, the vegetation of limestone hills and flora and fauna of mudflats and beaches. These features make Kilim a popular site for ecotourism. Due to those facts, Kilim receives tourists from all around the world. Without any proper and sustainable management, there will be negative impact on environment and local community in Kilim. According to Spalding et al. (1997), destruction on mangrove forests because of human activities causes the degradation of species richness. Such problem exists in Kilim river, where, a total of 8% (176.83 ha) of mangrove forest was degraded from its total area of 2153.07 ha (Shahbudin et al., 2012). Shahbudin et al. (2012) identified the causes of degradation of mangrove forests in Kilim river were mangrove clearing (38%), mangrove conversion to commercial area (21%), residential area (19%) and wake current (6%). Shahbudin et al. (2012) also stated that the increasing of tourism industry in Kilim led the high developments around Kilim area, which then make the degradation of mangrove ecosystem. In making a low impact of tourism in Kilim, sustainable tourism must be applied
in order to give more benefits to the environment, local community and generate more profits. According to Blancas et al. (2011), a large number of sustainable indicators have been identified for tourist destinations; hence, it may not essential or possible to apply on all indicators in all cases. Therefore, a selection of appropriate indicators is essential for assessment to develop sustainable tourism in tourist destinations. There are a lot of examples of study on sustainable developments. One of the examples is in Blancas’s study, where, he aimed to identify the indicators, how to attain a measurement which provides all assessment and show how those tools can be used in practice by conducting an empirical analysis (figure 1). His study took place in rural destinations in Andalusia (Spain) and used half (67.02%) of the indicator sets due to inadequate information. The main source of his study was from The Statistical Institute of Andalusia. Likewise, this paper is also a study in rural area. However, this study apply secondary data to get the information. This paper discusses selected indicator for sustainable tourism development in Kilim, Langkawi. Two indicators were selected as the focus of this study; economic and social.
2
Figure 1: Multidimensional evaluation method for established destinations. (Source: Blancas et al., 2011)
2. Kilim and Torism Development 2.1 History of Kilim Kilim is located in the northeast region of Langkawi. There are three rivers in the area which are Kilim, Air Hangat, and Kisap that flow into to the sea. Kilim is initially a rural area that has emerged as a tourist destination. Kilim used to be a small village vil area where the local community only involved in fisheries and mangrove forest logging for charcoal industry. At present, there is a charcoal factory which was established before the launch of Geoforest Park in Kilim (Nizar, 2012). There are four villages lages which are Kampung Kilim as main village and the other three are Kampung Lubuk Mata Kucing, Kampung Lunggok, and nd Kampung Batu Gajah. About bout 47800 hectare of total land area was designated as Kilim Geoforest Park (Nabila et al., 2012).
2.2 Tourism Industry dustry in Kilim Tourism development in Kilim was initiated by a fisherman, En. Saad b. Mustafa on November 1996 (Rural and Regional Development Ministry, 2009). His idea was to run tourism projects known as KEN (Kumpulan Kumpulan Ekonomi Nelayan) Nelayan involving a tour around the rivers in Kilim. The implementation of the project began in September 2002 and was officially launched on 18 September 2004. The project coordinated by the Village Development and Safety Association (JKKKP) of Kampung Kilim andd carried out by a group of fisherman in Kilim (Rural and Regional Development Ministry, 2009). The project has attracted many tourists, especially foreign tourists and they are willing to pay for the product. The project managed to attract over 10, 000 tourists urists each month (The Star, 2009). The Government has recognized the success of Kilim tourism industry as the sector has provided job opportunities and increase community income. In addition, Kilim was
3
awarded the “Anugerah Ilham Desa 2009” for its contribution in tourism industry (Rural and Regional Development Ministry, 2009). Another international level achievement is the Geoforest Park status awarded by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in June 2007 as Kilim Karst Geoforest Park (Norzaini, 2010). The other locations in Geoforest Park Langkawi are Machinchang Cambrian Geoforest Park and Dayang Bunting Marble Geoforest Park. The recognation of Kilim as a
Geoforest Park has attracted many tourists to Kilim. Based on information of tourist arrivals in Kilim from 2010 until 2011, the graph showed rapid increasing of tourists in every month except on August (Figure 2). Tourism activities in Kilim are seasonal and influenced by holidays. The governing body of tourism in Langkawi, Langkawi Development Authority (LADA) has incorporated Kilim and transformed the site into a modern tourist destination (Leman, 2007).
Figure 2: Tourist arrivals statistic in Kilim (Source: Koperasi Komuniti Kampung Kilim Langkawi Berhad, 2012) Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and 3. Sustainable Tourism and Indicators Sustainable tourism is a well known environmental impacts, addressing the needs of approach in tourism industry nowadays. visitors, the industry, the environment and host Middleton (1998), describes sustainable communities tourism as to attain a number and types of In brief, sustainable tourism is a tool visitors, the collective effect on activities at a given destination and actions of servicing which manages an area for tourism activity business will be continued into foreseeable without compromising the quality of the area future without giving any harm to the quality of and at the same time giving benefits to local environment. The World Tourism Organization community, tourists and tourism agencies. There are a lot of studies on sustainable (UNWTO) defines sustainable tourism as: tourism from different perspectives with various methods and analysis (Table 1).
4
Table 1: Case studies on sustainable tourism development Authors
Date
Geographical location and types
Topic
Types of data gathering/analysis
Farrell
1992
USA (Maui, Hawaii), tourism development policy
Tourism as an element in SD
Not clear/descriptive
Klemm
1992
France (Languedoc-Roussillon), tourism development project
Importance of public sector involvement (or in partnership with private sector) for STD
Official statistics/descriptive
Owen et al.
1993
UK (Mid-Wales Festival of the Countryside), festival
STD in a festival of the countryside
Qualitative (personal experience)/descriptive
Gilbert et al.
1994
Kenya andCameroon, national park
Sustainability issues in the African national parks
Review of lit./descriptive
Mak and Moncur
1995
USA (Hanauma Bay, Hawaii),tourism management strategy
Evaluation of tourism management strategies for SD
Review of lit./descriptive
Haukins and Cunningham
1996
USA (Disney’s America project in Virginia), tourism development project
STD andpublic consultation
Review of lit./descriptive
Wilson
1996
Barbados and St Lucia in the Caribbean, tourism development policy
Question of sustainability in Caribbean tourism
Observation, interviews review of lit./descriptive
Driml and Common
1996
Australia (the Great Barrier Reef worldheritage area), world heritage
Ecological economics criteria for sustainable tourism
Review of lit./descriptive
Kinght, Mithcell and Wall
1997
Indonesia (Bali), tourism development project
Sustainable development, tourism and coastal management
Observation/descriptive
Tosun
1998
Turkey (Urgup), tourism development project
Roots of unsustainable tourism development at the local level
Focus group, personal interviews, observation and personal experience in the tourism industry/descriptive
Sofield and Li
1998
China (Gokh Chin Festival), cultural festival
Historical methodology of assessment and sustainability
Participant observation and a situation analysis/descriptive
Griffin
2000
Ireland(Lough Derg), tour operators
A practical investigation of sustainable tourism in businesses
Questionnaire survey with the tourism industry/descriptive
Key words: SD: Sustainable development, STD: Sustainable tourism development (Source:Tae, 2005) difference, the use of indicator helps a Indicators in tourism research are the particular destination to prevent the unwanted measurement tool to measure the existence or or unsustainable situations to occur (WTO, current issues in many ways that give effect in 2004). This paper will discuss two indicators tourism industries and the results of human commonly applied in sustainable tourism actions (WTO, 2004). There are many types of development (Table 2). indicators that are used in sustainable tourism research for a particular site. Many of the indicators are different depending on the utilisation of the decision-makers. Despite the
5
Table 2: Sustainable tourism indicators in Kilim No.
Types of Indicator Description 1. Sustaining tourism The level of satisfaction of tourists satisfaction 2. Economic benefits of The number of employment of local people in tourism and tourism total revenues generated for them. (Source: modified from Blancas et al., 2011)
The first indicator is the economic condition of local community. This is measured by employment rate and level of income generated from tourism industry. Meanwhile, second indicator focuses on tourist satisfaction. In many cases, the employment among local residents increased due to the existence of tourism industry. It is a positive indication how tourism can effect an economic structure of an area. Tourism industry is expected to experience further growth in the future and become one of the vital sectors in this country. The sector would open up job opportunities for many people especially local residents, and increase their income as well as improving their lifestyle. In tourism industry which is known as open and competitive business, tourist satisfactions need to be addressed or there is no business or destination will be sustainable (Swarbrooke, 1999). In order to maintain this sector for a long term, quality improvement of the sector is very important and they need to be evaluated through tourist satisfaction survey. The data obtained from the survey provides useful information for future tourism planning.
3.1 Sustaining Tourist Satisfaction Information on level of satisfaction can help management to reveal the weaknesses and improve their services and development in tourism sector. Previous research on satisfaction of tourist in Kilim itself had been carried out by Zaki (2009), where his study showed scale of overall satisfaction of tourists, 79.1 out of 100. In his study, he focused on the product, service, and level of satisfaction with 34 variables (dependent and independent variables) and employed Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 10 (strongly agree). Mean scores of variables in Likert scales “1-10” are concurrently converted to a scale of “0-100” based on the formula in his study and to find out the index scores for the variables (Table 3). In brief, based on his finding in figure 3, level of tourists’ satisfaction in Kilim is mostly good. This indicator is a positive way to know the tourists needs and help the management agency to improve their services.
6
Table 3: Index scores of level satisfaction of tourists in Kilim, Langkawi. (Source: Zaki, 2009) 3.2 Economic Benefits of Tourism Economic benefits of tourism can be looked into many aspects as tourism industries can generate revenues on the other sectors (Table 4). Before this, Kilim is famous with fisheries. After tourism take place in Kilim, tour boat had generated the highest annual income, which is RM800, 000.00. The other sectors related to tourism direct or indirectly have also been affected by
tourism activities. For instances, food production will increase to support the tourism sectors such as restaurant in Kilim that generated a total income of RM125, 000.00 per year. Supplier of food production such as caged fish is popular in Kilim, where it generates RM150, 000.00 per year. This followed by animal husbandry (cow and goat) farming. The other sector that generates high annual income is car workshop with RM120, 000.00. Without
7
tourism industry in Kilim, those sectors will hardly produce high annual incomes. According to Boyne (2001), there are many rural areas involved in place specific, high-quality food and beverage product as their positive destination characteristics where they are marketing and promoting it as tourism and rural development programmes. As mentioned before, tourism industry will provide job opportunities to local community, it is proven
No. 1. 2. 3. No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
true in Kilim where data from Persatuan Koperasi Perikanan Kilim shows that most of villagers work is related to tourism either directly or indirectly (Table 5). There are several villagers who work with government and private sectors. Others are self employed either in tourism, farming, husbandry, manufacturing, small business or restaurant.
Table 4: The revenue from other sectors Agricultural Types No. of operators Rubber tree 8 Coconut Tree 1 Farming 2 Husbandry/ Fishery Types No. of operators Caged Fish 10 Cow Farming 10 Goat Farming 1 Village Chicken 1 Farming Seaweed 3
Annual Income (RM) 200, 000.00 1,500.00 2,500.00 Annual Income (RM) 150, 000.00 10, 000.00 7, 000.00 3, 000.00 In trial stage
Others (Small Industries / Services / Manufacturing / Tourism, etc.) No. Types No. of operators Annual Income (RM) 1. Car Workshop 1 120, 000.00 2. Tourists Boat 24 800, 000.00 3. Restaurant 8 125, 000.00 Source: Persatuan Koperasi Perikanan Kilim, 2012
Types
Table 5: Occupation of local community in Kilim Man Women
Government
20
10
Private
15
20
Others
80
10
Unemployed
Unknown
Unknown
Source: Persatuan Koperasi Perikanan Kilim, 2012
8
4. Conclusions Tourism is a broad business which gives high profits and impacts on a tourists destination. The high impact may be in term of benefits or disadvantages to economy, social and environment in tourist destinations especially in rural areas. Therefore, sustainable tourism development in rural area is most excellent ways to manage the visitors and ensure they gain enjoyable experience and at the same time, encourage the local community to involve in tourism sector either direct or indirectly. However, the conservation of nature around the destination should be managed properly.
5. Acknowledgements This study was financed by a grant from Long Term Research Grant Scheme (LRGS) for paper presentation. All remaining errors and omissions in this paper are solely ours.
6. References Blancas, F. J., Lozano-Oyola, M., Guerrero, F. M., & Caballero, R. (2011). How to use sustainability indicators for tourism planning: The case of rural tourism in Andalusia (Spain). Science of the Total Environment. 412-413(1): 28-45. Leman, M.S., Ghani, K.A., Komoo, I. and Ahmad, N. (2007) Langkawi Geopark. Bangi: LESTARI, UKM and LADA Publication. Middleton, V. (1998) Sustainable Tourism – A Marketing Perspective. ButterworthHeinemann: Oxford. Nabila, G. F., Faridah, H. I., Kamziah, A. K., & Nazre, M. (2012). Assessment of Floristic Composition of Kilim Geoforest Park, Langkawi, Malaysia. Journal of Agricultural Science. 4(3): 23-34.
Nizar, M. (2012) The develompent of Kilim. Interviewed by Nurul Hikmah Zameli [in person] Kilim, July 11, 2012. Norzaini A., Sharina A. H, & Ibrahim K. (2010). Public Education in Heritage Conservation for Geopark Community. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences. 7(C): 504-511. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.10.068 Pazim, O. (2011). The Impact of Tourism on Small Business Performance: Empirical Evidence from Malaysian Islands, International Journal of Business and Social Science. 2(1): 11-21. Persatuan Koperasi Perikanan Kilim, Koperasi Komuniti Kampung Kilim Langkawi Berhad: Langkawi, Kedah, 2012. Rekod kemasukan pelancong ke jeti Kilim; Koperasi Komuniti Kampung Kilim Langkawi Berhad: Langkawi, Kedah, 2012. Rural and Regional Development Ministry (2009) Anugerah Ilham Desa Peringkat Kebangsaan 2009: Komuniti Berdaya Desa Berjaya. [press release], October 29, 2009. Shahbudin, S., Zuhairi, A., & Kamaruzzaman, B. Y. (2012). Impact of coastal development on mangrove cover in Kilim river, Langkawi Island, Malaysia. Journal of Forestry Research, 23(2), 185−190. Doi: 10.1007/s11676-011-0218-0 Spalding, M., Blasco, F., & Field, C. (1997). World Mangrove Atlas. Okinawa: International Society for Mangrove Ecosystems (ISME). Swarbrooke, J. (1999). Sustainable Tourism Management, Wallingford, England: CABI.
9
Tae, G. K. (2005). Development of a tourism sustainability assessment procedure: a conceptual approach. Tourism Management. 26 (1):431-445. Unknown. Sungai Kilim strikes gold again. The Star, [online] November 5, 2009. Retrieved August 16, 2012 from http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?fi le=/2009/11/5/north/5045682&sec=nort h. Zaki, M. A. (2009). Tourists’ Satisfaction on Kilim River Mangrove Forest Ecotourism Services, International Journal of Business and Management. 4(7): 76-84.
10