How important is community empowerment in sustainable tourism development?

Issues related to sustainable tourism development are a concern at the global, national, and local levels. Overtourism and environmental degradation are urgent issues that require attention in the context of environmental conservation. Achieving effective sustainable tourism governance is crucial and depends on adequate community capacity. Various community empowerment efforts have been undertaken to achieve this goal. Unfortunately, however, community empowerment often remains merely a discourse and an ideal concept, rather than being effectively implemented on the ground. This situation has resulted in sustainable tourism development remaining far from being realized. This study aims to examine the importance of community empowerment in sustainable tourism development by describing and analyzing its supporting and inhibiting factors. This study was conducted through a literature review, examining several journals and other reading sources. The results indicate that community empowerment is a primary necessity in the practice of sustainable tourism development. Supporting factors include: community capacity, community participation, government policy support, availability of local resources, technology, information and communication, and collaboration. Meanwhile, inhibiting factors include low community participation, low community capacity, limited capital, the dominance of foreign investors, and low levels of collaboration.