Community Benefiting through Tourism as A Tool for Empowering
the Community – Case Study of Saung Angklung Udjo in Bandung,
Indonesia
Norhazliza Halim, Hebby Wilanda, Syuhaidah Hamdi, Aznida Abdullah and Syukriah Hassan
Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Malaysia
Keywords: Community, Community Based Tourism, Community Benefiting through Tourism
Abstract: Community-Based Tourism (CBT) is a tool to improve the quality of life of the rural local community by
creating direct employment opportunities as well as increasing income levels and consequently reducing the
level of poverty in the rural areas. After a few decades, variants of CBT are formed to advocate
sustainability in rural tourism industry such as Community Benefiting through Tourism (CBtT). By
understanding CBtT concept will lead to a different perspective of Community-Based Tourism. The purpose
of this study is to examine the implementation of CBtT on selected projects in Indonesia. The case study
focused on Saung Angklung Udjo, a successful CBT project which preserving Sundanese culture in
Bandung, Indonesia. Saung Angklung Udjo presents authentic, educative, attractive, and live performances
that are substantially the authenticity of Sundanese culture. By reviewing related literature and existing
projects, this paper explains how community gain benefits from tourism. The findings show that
Community Benefiting through Tourism (CBtT) has been implemented at Saung Angklung Udjo. It is
proved by indirect community involvement in tourism activities and benefiting community by increasing
household income; improving skills and knowledge; encouraging youth, women, poor and disadvantaged
minority group; socio-cultural preservation; and conservation of natural and cultural resources.
1 INTRODUCTION
Tourism is often criticized for the dominance of
business by the outsiders while hosts with minimum
skills usually get low-end jobs. As a result, the local
community feels alienated in their villages without
any economic benefits flowing to them from the new
developments and traditional systems disintegrating.
During the next decade, some studies and
researchers look forward to the issues. Some
tourism-related organization around the world
started to promote ‘people’ in the ‘community’ as
the ‘centre’ or ‘heart’ of tourism development.
Residents are seen as a critical resource in sustaining
the product of tourism destinations (Hardy et al.,
2002).
A glance through the literature has described a
variety of potential challenges faced by the concept
of Community-Based Tourism. To cope with such
problems, scholars have proposed a range of
alternative frameworks. “The Community Benefit
Tourism Initiative” developed by Simpson (2008),
for example, is a framework that focuses on the
transformation of benefits to a community regardless
of size, location, wealth level, participation,
involvement, ownership or control (Iorio and Wall,
2012). In this scope, Community-Based Tourism
centres on the question of ownership, management
and/or control of tourism projects (Blackstock,
2005). Otherwise, this is not the case for a CBTI, to
distribute benefits to a community, the tourism
initiative need not always involve the community in
any rights, tenure or control of the project.
Another effort was also made by Honggang et al.
2009 as cited in Kontogeorgopoulos et al. (2014)
argue that CBT, defined alternatively as
“Communities Benefiting through Tourism (CBtT).”
By concerning to community, the initiative tries to
improve quality of life by giving benefits to the
community through tourism.
Furthermore, this study is developed to bring the
concept of Community Benefiting through Tourism
to empower local community. It also brings the
examples of how the idea had been applied.
880
Halim, N., Wilanda, H., Hamdi, S., Abdullah, A. and Hassan, S.
Community Benefiting through Tourism as A Tool for Empowering the Community – Case Study of Saung Angklung Udjo in Bandung, Indonesia.
In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Islamic Economics, Business, and Philanthropy (ICIEBP 2017) - Transforming Islamic Economy and Societies, pages 880-885
ISBN: 978-989-758-315-5
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

2 COMMUNITY BENEFITING
THROUGH TOURISM (CBTT)
2.1 Overview of Community Benefiting
through Tourism (CBtT)
A number of thought rather than focusing on local
ownership, management, and control, tourism
involving rural communities should be more
concerned about its distributive benefits. This
approach is referred to Community Benefiting
through Tourism (CBtT) (Sofield, 2009 as cited in
Hamzah, 2014). Proponents of CBtT argue that the
local community could benefit from tourism without
having to be directly involved in it and without
having to own or control the businesses. They
further suggested that tourism businesses in rural
areas need to be driven by the private sector to be
successful (Kontogeorgopoulos, 2005). This
approach represents a radical departure from the
traditional concept of CBT, and a total contrast to
the assertion by Murphy and Murphy ( 2004) that
communities should build up their capacity to handle
community-based tourism businesses around the
four essential components of the business model,
which are planning, organization, leadership, and
control.
2.2 Community Benefiting from
Tourism
Since tourism is a system of many inter-related
sectors, it contributes significantly to a broadly
based framework where it becomes a significant
generator of income and employment. Conceptually,
and as a corollary to consideration of tourism as a
complex system, it is necessary to integrate tourism
development into community development
holistically for poverty alleviation. Treating tourism
as a complex system could increase the backward
and forward linkage opportunities for poorer
sections of communities and intervention on a
broader range of enterprises. By working in the area
of backward linkages in activities, it is possible to
identify the points of ingress for development
assistance aimed at alleviating poverty. (Sofield et
al., 2004)
The tourism industry has strong linkages with
many other sectors within national economies. The
industry is also highly geographically dispersed.
These aspects of travel and tourism sector can make
expansion of the sector a useful tool for broader
economic development, particularly for rural and
low-income regional economies. Tourism-based
businesses create jobs, bring new money into the
region and also help diversify the local industrial
base. Economic diversity is critical to the success of
most rural areas in both the developed and
developing world. Tourism also benefits local
economies by enhancing labor mobility and makes it
easier for migrants to stay in touch with family and
friends and to also return home to visit. Both the
host country and the country of origin benefit from
the increased labor mobility. The remittances a
migrant sends home to family members have
become an increasingly important source of revenue
for developing countries. Also, the host economy
benefits from the addition and availability of skills
and labor – such as foreign language, technology,
and cultural knowledge. Increased labour mobility
allows companies’ access to a larger pool of skilled
workers.
Furthermore, Mitchell and Faal (2006) state that
linkages are shorthand for the way in which tourist
businesses can build links with others in the local
economy. Local economic linkages generally reduce
leakages and increase multipliers. Leakages are
payments made outside the tourist destination
economy – or, the proportion of total holiday price
that does not reach or remain in the destination,
whereas multipliers are the factor by which the
return deriving from expenditure exceeds the
expenditure itself. In this concept, direct and indirect
impacts generate induced impacts which are the
results of increased personal income caused by the
direct and indirect effects. Businesses experiencing
increased revenue from the direct and indirect
effects will subsequently increase payroll
expenditures (by hiring more employees, expanding
payroll hours, raising salaries, etc.). Households
will, in turn, increase spending at local businesses.
The induced effect is a measure of this increase in
household-to-business activity.
Figure 1: Impacts of tourism sectors.
Community Benefiting through Tourism as A Tool for Empowering the Community – Case Study of Saung Angklung Udjo in Bandung,
Indonesia
881

From description above and related literature,
benefits of tourism for the community are provided
in the table below.
Table 1: Benefits of Tourism for Community.
No
Benefits of Tourism for Community
1
Gaining income for households: revenue and
employment.
2
Empowering local people by building the skills
through training and education to improve skills
and capacity relevant to planning, production,
business development and management of
business-related tourism services.
3
Strengthening local organization.
4
Reducing community migration to the urban area.
5
Improving live standard through improving local
health by development of a sanitation and sewage
system, public facilities and infrastructure, such as
roads, water system, electricity network and
telecommunications.
6
Preserving socio-cultural status and the environment
of the local communities.
7
Conservation of natural and cultural resources.
8
Providing new roles and improved voice for
unskilled youth, women, elderly, indigenous,
marginalized, non-elite, poor and disadvantaged
minority groups.
Source: (Baktygulov and Raeva, 2008; Spenceley et al., 2009;
Suriya, 2010; López-guzmán and Sánchez-cañizares, 2011; Kaur,
Jawaid, and Othman, 2013; Tasci et al., 2013; Ismail and Halim,
2014).
2.3 Community Benefiting through
Tourism (CBtT) as Variant of
Community-Based Tourism
CBT most commonly refers to communities which
engage in “front-line operations” that incorporate
direct interface with tourists, such as homestays and
lodges, small eco-tours, guide and porter services for
local tours/treks, cultural performances for fee-
paying visitors, teahouses, refreshment kiosks and
restaurants, and souvenir/handicraft outlets (Sofield
et al., 2004). These are usually co-located within the
residential boundaries of a community, or nearby
adjacent to the community.
However, in Community Benefiting through
Tourism, the community has no direct interaction
with tourists and may be physically distant from
tourist operations. This approach is in line with the
concept of indirect community participation in
tourism (see diagram 2.2 and diagram 2.4).
Furthermore, through the supply chain, the
community may be dependent upon tourism for their
income by providing an item or product needed
(Sofield, 2011 as cited in Halim, 2014)
The degree of indirect benefit received by
communities is directly related to the level of
linkage between tourism and other sectors of the
economy. For instance, in most agricultural
communities, the benefits received from tourism are
great since the hotels often depend on these
communities to provide products needed for the
guests. Smaller hotels in the region are more likely
to contribute to the indirect flow of benefits to these
communities, however, since they more readily
depend on agricultural communities for their food
items. Because of their size and relatively small
budgets, they are less likely to import food to be
served to their guests. The primary concern when
such arrangements exist is the quality of the produce
provided by the hotels. In instances where the
variety of goods is inadequate, local fanners may
need assistance and technical expertise from the
hotel and tourism sector, as well as from the
government, to assist in upgrading their standards
and increasing the quality of their product.
(Jayawardena, 2001)
As Liu et al. (2012) mention some tourism
activities; such as working as a temporary
infrastructure construction labourer, selling locally
collected medicinal herbs, selling locally made
honey, selling locally made smoked pork, and
selling other local products; were sold to local
restaurants, shops, and street vendors, which
eventually were purchased by visitors and increase
community income. Besides the financial benefits,
households receiving more direct financial benefits
tended to perceive more non-financial benefits. They
tended to communicate more with tourists and
exchange information with tourists, and they
perceived more positive impacts of tourism on their
standards of living. The communications may help
to break the feeling of isolation of rural minorities
and visitors in reserve, create mutual awareness of
each group, and provide an opportunity to learn from
each other. Such contact can be a starting point for
more fundamental inter-cultural encounters.
3 CASE STUDY OF COMMUNITY
BENEFITING THROUGH
TOURISM IN BANDUNG,
INDONESIA
Saung Angklung Udjo is located in Kampung
Padasuka, Cicaheum area of Bandung, Indonesia.
Sited on an area of 1.5ha in the village, it lies
approximately 10km away from the Bandung town
ICIEBP 2017 - 1st International Conference on Islamic Economics, Business and Philanthropy
882

centre, the capital city of West Jawa. The village has
an estimated total population of 1,300 members who
practice Sundanese culture.
Figure 2: Angklung performance at Saung Angklung
Udjo.
Established in 1966 by the late Udjo Nalagena
(1929-2001) and his beloved wife, Uum Sumiyati,
Saung Angklung Udjo was built with purpose and
dedication to conserving West Java’s Sundanese
traditional art and culture. It was Udjo Nalagena
who brought the passion and principles which made
Udjo's House of Angklung a place where Sundanese
art and culture thrive and gained proper respect
worldwide. His efforts to introduce and promote
angklung finally paid off when UNESCO inscribed
Angklung in the Intangible Cultural Heritage List in
November 2010 (Ministry of Tourism Republic of
Indonesia, 2016).
Source: Hamzah and Khalifah, 2009
Figure 3: Organizational Structure of Saung Angklung
Udjo.
4 IMPLEMENTATION OF
COMMUNITY BENEFITING
THROUGH TOURISM AT
SAUNG ANGKLUNG UDJO IN
BANDUNG, INDONESIA
Saung Angklung Udjo is a CBT project which has
evolved from a family-run cultural preservation
centre to become a successful community based
tourism enterprise that has significantly benefited
the local communities directly as well as indirectly.
The case illustrates how the local communities are
able to participate and economically gain from the
project without being directly involved in the
hosting of guests (Ching et al., 2010).
Saung angklung Udjo or also known as Udjo's
House of Angklung dedicates itself to the
conservation and preservation of the natural
environment. As a form of environmental
responsibility, Udjo's House of Angklung cooperates
with the Ministry of Forestry, getting involved in the
‘Indonesia Planting’ Campaign, known as
Kampanye Indonesia Menanam, and created the
Forestry Counseling Centre.
Udjo's House of Angklung adopts the philosophy
of easy, affordable, educative, attractive, massive,
and cheerful performances that are the essence of
their ultimate show called “Kaulinan Urang
Lembur” or villagers’ playtime. The show is packed
with spectacular short performances, commencing
with wayang golek (wooden puppet) show, helaran
(agricultural harvesting celebration) rites, traditional
dances, kids games, introduction to angklung,
angklung orchestral performance, interactive
angklung performance that involves visitors playing
angklung, and arumba performance.
The owner established a traditional Sundanese
performing art studio. The initiative was rooted in
the passion and respect he has for preserving and
developing Sundanese arts and traditions. He had
gradually involved his community in Saung
Angklung Udjo, recognising the possible benefits
which can be shared with the community and also
the significant roles of the community on Saung
Angklung Udjo‟s future development. The
community has since then become part of the efforts
in preserving culture and developing business
(Ching et al., 2010).
Community Benefiting through Tourism as A Tool for Empowering the Community – Case Study of Saung Angklung Udjo in Bandung,
Indonesia
883

Table 2: Implementation of Community Benefiting
through Tourism at Saung Angklung Udjo.
No
Implementation of Community Benefiting
through Tourism at Saung Angklung Udjo
1
Industry-initiated Community Based Tourism.
In Saung Angklung Udjo, the community does
not contact directly with tourist.
2
Community gain benefit from tourism such as
from angklung and craft production.
3
Empowering local people by building the skills
through training and education to improve skills
and capacity.
4
Preserving socio-cultural status and the
environment of the local communities through
the performance of Saung Angklung Udjo such
as traditional dance and sing.
5
Conservation of natural and cultural resources.
Saung Angklung Udjo uses bamboo as the
primary material to make angklung.
6
Improved voice for unskilled youth, women,
poor and disadvantaged minority groups.
Source: Hamzah and Khalifah, 2009; Ching et al., 2010; Hamzah, 2014
5 CONCLUSIONS
This paper has described the concept of Community
Benefiting through Tourism (CBtT). Using Saung
Angklung Udjo which represents the CBT projects
in Indonesia, this paper also reveals how the
principles of CBtT have been applied in these
projects. As a result, Saung Angklung Udjo has
implemented CBtT as the concept to sustain in the
tourism industry as well as empowering local
community.
In term of initiator, the industry plays the role
where community involved indirectly in tourism
activities. However, community still gets benefits
such as income from angklung and local craft
production, and also improving their skills and
knowledge, especially for youth, women, poor, and
disadvantaged minority group. On the other hand,
they have the effort to preserve and conserve social,
cultural and environmental resources.
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