Tourism sustainability in the Bogor Botanical Gardens, Indonesia

摘要

The Bogor Botanical Gardens (BBG) represents one of the most prominent gardens in the largest urbanised area of SE Asia. However, the BBG is poorly visible in academic literature, and research on its role as an urban forest is particularly lacking. This study assesses sustainability of tourism management in the BBG. Stakeholders such as staff members, travel agents, tour guides, etc. were interviewed. The analysis of the responses showed that the respondents rated non-destructive use of resources and improving visitors' satisfaction as the first and second highest values, respectively. Conversely, the regulatory role of the garden's law enforcement, management monitoring and participation of stakeholders received the least ratings. Our survey shows that the BBG is implementing certain elements of sustainable tourism, yet there was a lack of discipline and participation in the face of problems generated by rapid urbanisation and growing number of visitors. These findings can be relevant to other botanical gardens in fast-growing conurbations of SE Asia and the developing world. These results also suggest that a deeper study is necessary to better understand and manage the problems related to the increasing number of visitors.