Local Tourism Businesses in Indonesia: A Pathway to Crisis Resilient Development?

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore ways in which small tourism-based enterprises can offer a crisis-resilient pathway to sustainable development. Based on a mixed-embeddedness framework, this paper explores the multiple strategies that small enterprises in the silver souvenir industry of Kotagede (Yogyakarta, Indonesia) applied to cope with hardship during the Indonesian decade of crisis (1996-2006). The data on which this paper builds stem from qualitative research conducted in Yogyakarta over a time span of 20 years. This paper makes two contributions to the current literature. The first contribution is to offer empirical, longitudinal, primary data on small-firm performances against the background of fluctuations in the tourism industry. The second contribution is conceptual, arguing that an embeddedness approach, sensitive to location-specific characteristics, promises a better understanding of small tourism enterprises as crisis-resilient development path- ways. In doing so, this paper also asserts that small businesses, due to their embeddedness in household economies and subcontracting arrangements that include rural labor, have the capacity to become agents of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.