4.3 Women’s Access and Control in
Ecotourism Village Management
In developing an ecotourism village requires the in-
volvement of the community (community based) as
the administrator. This is because the community has
knowledge about the potential of nature, culture and
customs as well as the habits of the villagers who
have selling values and are useful for increasing the
income and welfare of the community. Community-
based ecotourism besides empowers the community
also increases knowledge (education) of tourists in
terms of conservation of nature, environment, culture
and customs and other interesting things for tourists
to learn. The involvement of the community as agents
of rural tourism development in tourism village man-
agement is absolutely necessary. With the empower-
ment in ecotourism, it will give a sense of pride and
awareness of the importance of their natural resources
and control over self-development of the local com-
munities (Scheyvens, 2000). For those reasons, un-
derstanding, support and involvement from the com-
munity is needed to create a conducive atmosphere.
Unfortunately in the Ecotourism Village Pam-
pang, the involvement of women in the management
of tourist villages is still very low, although more than
half (52%) of the population of Pampang Village are
women. Among the 19 Pokdarwis (Tourism Aware-
ness Group) administrators, the women were only 4
people or around 21%, as members of the waste bank
section / unit, which was included as one of the sec-
tions in Pokdarwis. The low number of women in the
management indicates a lack of space given to women
to take part in managing the tourism village of Pam-
pang. This will also limit the aspirations of women
in developing tourism in their villages. According to
some informants (from civil servants, village admin-
istrators, tourism conscious group, residents) the role
of most women is still limited to the culinary field.
The culinary field activities carried out include the
digital market by providing Pampang regional culi-
nary products, providing food in the form of snacks
and lunch of guests in need, as well as in events held
in the Ecotourism village of Pampang. The tourists’
food and the culinary market are provided in groups,
by making use the existing groups namely women
farmer groups. Even though they look busy as the
main helpers but in fact they are still limited to carry-
ing out technical activities / implementer rather than
decision-making activities in the planning and super-
vision / control of tourism development programs in
their villages, the same way as the man who has no
right to participate in the household activities (Lu-
nardi, Souza and Perurena, 2015). Likewise in waste
bank activities, women still play a role as executors
rather than as planners, decision makers or control
activities. They sort the waste, record it, then re-
ported the results at the monthly meeting. They ac-
tively came to the monthly meeting but, according to
the informant, they were not active in expressing their
opinions. The waste sorting activity usually starts at
09 am until 12 noon. Before carrying out activities
in the waste bank, they completed all their household
chores. Pampang village women can be active outside
their house without having to leave their household
affairs. All of these activities is done happily with-
out feeling any burden. They feel proud because they
can play a role in their village. The steps to realize
women’s rights are to eliminate differences, dispari-
ties / gaps or conditions that harm women (Syukrie,
2003).
4.4 Supporting and Inhibiting Factors
According to the informants, the factors that support
women’s involvement to be active in managing Pam-
pang tourism villages include self-awareness, the de-
sire to advance the village, the permit from husband,
having free time, having a culinary market, and hav-
ing a green village. Self-awareness that arises are
due to a sense of calling to develop tourism in their
village that is reflected in the seriousness of some
women who still provide culinary wares for visitors
even though there are other jobs that must be com-
pleted at the same time, and due to the awareness of
self-development needs to increase skills and knowl-
edge in the culinary field. Husband’s permission and
support are the driving factors that cause them to be
able to actualize totally in every activity, besides their
spare time which they deliberately set aside from their
daily activities in completing household chores. They
must be smart to divide the time so that when the
house is left there is no one neglected. The existence
of a culinary market and the existence of green vil-
lages, which according to informants as supporting
factors, indicate that in fact the women involved in it
need a means to actualize that is still related to activi-
ties in the domestic sphere.
The inhibiting factors that were felt by the women
include: not being involved in activities that support
tourism, there has been no guidance, husbands do
not support, busy taking care of households and rice
fields, lack of awareness, and lack of insight. The
involvement of women in promoting tourism in their
village requires opportunities given to women to join
in it. From the author’s observation, the limited op-
portunities provided were caused by the assumption
that women were busy taking care of their house-
Women Participation in an Ecotourism Village Management: A Case Study in the Ecotourism Village of Pampang, Paliyan District,
Gunungkidul Regency, Indonesia
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