Power in community-based tourism: empowerment and partnership in Bali

In a tourism industry historically dominated by outside influences, the island of Bali has striven for greater local resident involvement. Community-based tourism (CBT) has thereby become an increasingly preferred tourism development approach rooted in promises of more inclusive opportunities for community empowerment, a notion reflected in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Drawing upon SDG17 – Partnerships for the Goals – and specifically focusing on SDG17.9 – Capacity building, SDG17.14 – Enhancing policy coherence for sustainable development, and SDG17.16 and SDG17.17 – Multi-stakeholder partnerships, this paper investigates the “social empowerment” that results from interactions between CBT actors, and the factors that support or hinder residents’ empowerment through CBT in rural Bali. This paper presents empirical evidence from an ethnographic study in three villages at different stages of tourism development. Through a generative conceptualisation of power, embedded in the rather hierarchical Balinese socio-cultural context, this paper contributes new understandings of empowerment in CBT, particularly the extent to which partnerships and collaborations create spaces for residents’ empowerment and greater inclusion for sustainable CBT development, in line with Agenda 2030.