The spirit to create a tourism village by the village government and the community is a form of citizen participation in development as well as an effort to improve the welfare of the local village community.
This spirit can also be seen in Ngroto Village, which is located in Pujon District, Malang Regency. This village is located on Malang-Kediri road which is right on the edge of the highway. This village is adjacent to North Pujon Village which already has a Tourism Village known as Café Sawah.
The establishment of a Tourism Village, which was previously initiated by the village government and local community members, requires promotion through tourism village branding. Responding to this need, the Government Science Study Program FISIP Universitas Brawijaya through Community Service activities held a Workshop on Branding for Ngroto Tourism Village with speakers Ratnaningsih Damayanti, Fathur Rahman, and Restu Karlina Rahayu.
The workshop on the preparation of Ngroto Tourism Village Branding was held on 8 June 2022 at Ngroto village hall. The event was attended by Ngroto Village government, represented by Ngroto Village Head, Prayogi, SH, BPD representatives, and representatives from various community groups, namely BUMDes, PESAT Garden tourism managers, art groups, PKK, MSME owners, youth organizations, farmer groups, and so on.
Lecturer of Government Science, Ratnaningsih Damayanti conveyed that the tourism village branding was created to provide an identity, distinguishing Ngroto tourism village from other tourist villages.
“In addition, through branding the tourism village can also highlight the advantages of Ngroto tourism village with others,” she said.
The preparation of tourism village branding can be started from mapping the potential of the village which will later be used as a tourist attraction. The potential of this village is the identity of a tourism village that can distinguish one village from another. No less important than the tourism village branding is the promotion of the tourism village. Promotion can be done using social media which has a wide reach.
Ngroto village has beautiful natural scenery, rivers that can be used for rafting, cows that produce milk, vegetable and fruit gardens, cultural arts performances, and so on. One of the obstacles to the development of Ngroto tourism village lies in the integration of tourism objects.
Widodo as the chairman of Pesona Sawah Tulang (PESAT) Garden complained that most of the tourism objects belonged to residents. Only a small part is the village treasury land. And how to integrate tourism villages with different land ownership.
Regarding to this, he conveyed that integration and citizen participation can be carried out by including community shares, dividing roles between tourism managers and tourism object owners and having a clear profit sharing agreement.
“Indeed, it must be agreed between the owner of the tourist attraction and the manager and village government through village deliberations,” he said.
Some of the challenges in developing Ngroto tourism village in the future include collaboration between the agricultural/animal husbandry industries or with other tourism industries. Second, the diversity and quality of tourist attractions. Third, the availability of infrastructure. Fourth, accessibility to tourist villages. Fifth, the condition of amenities/supporting sectors such as places of worship, restaurants, handicraft industry, public toilets, and so on.
(Humas UB/ Trans. Iir)
