The purpose of this study is to explore the interaction between community capital and destination vulnerabilities in advancing regeneration outcomes in tourism villages in Bali.
This study is grounded in the Participatory Action Research (PAR) paradigm, using the Photovoice method with mobile data collection in two villages in Bali. Data collection includes a photo-taking workshop, photo taking, focus groups and a photo exhibition. Thematic analysis based on participants’ photos and focus group discussion was used to identify major themes.
The findings of this study demonstrated the presence of two elements of community capital: the social and economic components that can be harnessed for impactful regenerative rural tourism. This study also identified several vulnerabilities that need to be managed. The interaction among these elements through the spiraling effect contributes to regenerative outcomes.
This study explored how community capital and vulnerabilities affect regenerative tourism in villages. The findings demonstrate that investing in community capital helps destinations better manage vulnerabilities, increasing both stocks and flows of capital and building the resources needed for successful regenerative tourism. This study has a few limitations inherent to the photovoice methodology. First, this study was context-specific to two villages; however, the photo exhibition revealed similar issues across Bali, suggesting broader applicability. Future studies can replicate the processes and procedures in other rural destinations. The second limitation was associated with participant attrition. Participatory Action Research methods require significant time commitment from participants, and mitigating participant drop-off needs to be considered for future research using this method, particularly in rural areas. Finally, as most of the data for this study were gained from participants’ perspectives, future studies could incorporate objective measures to provide a more complete understanding of community capital and vulnerabilities.
As a practical implementation, to implement regenerative tourism, Gubug village should develop blacksmith-themed tourism activities supported by natural and cultural resources and provide hands-on activities for visitors. Gubug village should create a tourism master plan that includes perspectives from this study and submit a rural tourism application to the government. Babahan village should strengthen its Bali myna conservation project and improve farm waste management. Both villages can use participants’ photos as souvenirs, website content and marketing tools to build community support for tourism initiatives.
The societal implementation of this study focuses on the empowerment of local communities through the research topic and the method used in this study (Photovoice). This study empowered communities in three ways: new knowledge (photography), new networks through photo exhibition and pride over their identity by showing their photos to other stakeholders. All of these are needed for community change.
Unlike conventional regenerative tourism studies, this study used a photovoice method with participant-generated photos. This study highlights the importance of linking tourism activities to community capital and vulnerability in achieving desired regenerative tourism outcomes.
