Social Construction of Overtourism and Collaborative Governance in Penglipuran Customary Village, Bali
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24922/eot.v13i2.02Keywords:
social construction, overtourism, collaborative governance, sustainable tourism, customary villages, PenglipuranAbstract
Overtourism is commonly assessed through visitor numbers, although customary communities also experience its social, cultural, and symbolic consequences. This study examines how local actors construct overtourism and how these interpretations shape collaborative governance in Penglipuran Customary Village, Bali. A constructivist, qualitative instrumental case study was conducted from October 2025 to March 2026. Data were collected through interviews with representatives of eight stakeholder groups, participant observation, and analysis of customary regulations, tourism statistics, policy documents, and media narratives. Analysis followed Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña’s interactive model, informed by social construction theory and collaborative governance. Tourism Carrying Capacity (TCC) and Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) served solely as interpretive lenses. Residents and customary leaders understood overtourism as intrusion into private and sacred spaces, disruption of customary life, and cultural commercialization. Government officials and destination managers emphasized congestion, waste, and visitor management. Recorded visits increased from 35,541 in 2020 to 1,023,750 in 2024, while managers identified an ideal capacity of 1,200–2,000 visitors daily. Divergent meanings were externalized through stakeholder discourse, objectified in customary rules and agreed management measures, and internalized as collective awareness supporting deliberative collaboration under customary village authority. Agreed measures included a daily quota and tariff adjustment, one-way circulation, and a visit-package system planned for 2026. An interpretive TALC assessment suggested a consolidation-like stage without clear stagnation or decline. Sustainable tourism governance depends on socially generated legitimacy and collective awareness alongside technical controls. These context-specific findings offer analytical transferability to other comparable customary-village destinations rather than statistical generalization.
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