Enganging community participation in coastal tourism: A community-based tourism approach in Tanjung Siambang Riau Islands

One of the key factors in the development of tourism areas is the involvement of the community. The growth of tourism may immediately reciprocate the benefit towards community and triggers the community participation towards its development. The goal of this study is to explore the potential contribution to the growth of tourism by communities. Tanjung Siambang is one of the tourism area which maintained and promoted by the local community. Its location in the same area as the Provincial government office with many iconic landmarks has become the the main attraction to visit Tanjung Siambang. Therefore, qualitative approach was applied to gather informations from actors, stakeholders and visitors in describing the community based tourism by Tanjung Siambang community. The findings of this study shown the organizational capacity to run tourism activities by Pokdarwis group. Mostly, the activities are conducting interactive ecotourism whereas the visitors engaged in mangrove plantation, or beach cleaning. The transfer of knowledge from this organization to visitors is intended to share the benefit of the blue carbon to prevent global warming, as an awareness building. The economic benefit gained by Pokdarwis is the transaction of propagul by visitors, the majority of which are from educational institutions engaged in the spread of ecological awareness to the broader society, and the ecological benefit in having a cleaner beach, which attracts mass tourism to the beach.