Tourism development strategies and creative industries: The case of creative, thematic, and tourism Kampungs

In Indonesia, creative industries (CIs) have been strongly promoted through policies that strengthen national, regional, and local economic development. Bandung City has been one of the core cities carrying such an approach. It has a large presence of CIs, many of which are located in traditional neighborhoods—kampungs. These CIs represent an important cultural, social, and source of livelihood for much of the population residing in these kampungs. This chapter discusses three ways of how kampung communities engaged creativity and CIs as drivers for tourism development and economic promotion. The cases range from grassroots movements leading these initiatives to combined government- and community-led strategies. We investigate the case of Dago Pojok, a community-led “creative kampung” that emerged as an act of resistance against the exclusionary local government’s urban development actions. Second, Binongjati is a historical local industrial center with a large professional community-led CIs association aiming to convert the area into a “tourism kampung.” Thirdly, Cigadung, where traditional batik industries are clustered, is promoted as a “thematic creative kampung” by municipality-led strategies in close collaboration with strong local CIs actors. Interviews with kampung leaders inform the chapter. It explores similarities and differences in strategies followed by these three cases and investigates the involvement of the local community, associations/organizations, and the municipality to promote these kampungs as tourist creativity-based attractions. Finally, it reflects how community-led, community-driven, or community-informed tourism strategies are linked with local urban governance arrangements supporting these communities’ inclusion in the city’s wider identity-shaping discourses.