Post-Pandemic Resilience in Community-Based Tourism: Adaptive Strategies and Lessons for Sustainable Recovery
Keywords:
community-based tourism, pandemic resilience, post-COVID recovery, adaptive strategies, sustainable tourism, IndonesiaAbstract
The COVID-19 pandemic produced one of the most severe and rapid disruptions in the history of community-based tourism (CBT), with international travel collapse during 2020–2022 generating cascading consequences for community livelihoods, customary institutions, and tourism-dependent local economies. By early 2026, four years after the initial reopening of international travel, the recovery trajectory is sufficiently mature to permit retrospective analysis of which adaptive strategies proved durable and which did not. This study examines post-pandemic resilience in Indonesian CBT contexts, asking what adaptive strategies communities deployed during the disruption and recovery period (2020–early 2026), what structural conditions distinguish more resilient from less resilient cases, and what lessons emerge for sustainable CBT recovery. The research adopts a retrospective-prospective comparative case-study design across four Indonesian CBT destinations — Penglipuran (Bali), Wae Rebo (Flores), Nglanggeran (Yogyakarta), and Pemuteran (Bali) — using 41 semi-structured interviews, 14 focus group discussions with community participants, observation at six community sites, and analysis of 64 documents covering the 2019–2026 period. Fieldwork was conducted between January and February 2026. Findings reveal that resilience outcomes vary substantially across cases despite similar exogenous shock magnitudes, and that the variation is explained by five structural conditions present before, during, or established as a consequence of the pandemic period. The study introduces the Community-Based Tourism Resilience Configuration (CBTRC) framework, which classifies adaptive strategies and identifies the structural enablers of durable post-pandemic recovery. Implications are drawn for SDGs 8, 11, and 17.
Keywords: community-based tourism; pandemic resilience; post-COVID recovery; adaptive strategies; sustainable tourism; Indonesia
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