Swisscontact’s Labuan Bajo tourism impact study: what the record shows

Labuan Bajo — — A Swisscontact impact study titled Tourism Impacts in Labuan Bajo was produced within the WISATA II sustainable tourism programme and is listed as an April 2017 publication, but the front matter alone does not present its research findings or impact data.

The report forms part of Swisscontact’s broader WISATA initiative to support tourism development in selected Indonesian destinations, with a focus on economic development through sustainable tourism that creates employment and income for local communities.

Within this context, Labuan Bajo on Flores appears as one of several priority destinations where tourism growth is being tied to livelihoods, skills and environmental management, but the impact study’s detailed assessment is not accessible in the front matter reviewed.

What the Labuan Bajo report establishes

According to Swisscontact’s impact study listing, Tourism Impacts in Labuan Bajo is an output of the WISATA II programme and is available as a stand‑alone publication.

Academic work on sustainable tourism in Flores cites the Labuan Bajo report as authored by Stefanie Remmer and published under Swisscontact’s WISATA II programme, indicating that it was used as a reference for analysing tourism development in the region.

Swisscontact’s own documents describe WISATA as a tourism development programme funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and implemented in close cooperation with Indonesia’s Ministry of Tourism, with the main goal of contributing to economic development through sustainable tourism that creates employment and income.

WISATA I and WISATA II: programme scope

Swisscontact states that the WISATA programme originally started in 2009 focusing on the island of Flores, before expanding in a second phase.

The second phase, WISATA II, began in June 2014 and ran until June 2018, covering three additional destinations beyond Flores: Tanjung Puting in Central Kalimantan, Toraja in South Sulawesi and Wakatobi in Southeast Sulawesi.

Across these destinations, WISATA II worked on destination management, marketing and networking through destination management organisations, community involvement in tourism services and products, small and medium‑enterprise development, tourism education and government support for an enabling environment.

Education and training components

Swisscontact’s documentation on WISATA II notes that the programme strengthened tourism education and training, including support for vocational schools and higher‑education institutions.

Studies on community‑based tourism in Flores, drawing on WISATA materials, report that WISATA II strengthened nine vocational schools across the four destinations and three tourism higher‑education institutes, with an emphasis on improving the quality of touristic education and skills.

Swisscontact’s project information further highlights cooperation between nine vocational tourism schools and industry partners, with interventions that increased the number of graduates hired by the private sector.

What the available material does not show

While the existence of the Tourism Impacts in Labuan Bajo study, its author and its programme context are documented, publicly accessible summaries do not reproduce the report’s full findings on social, economic or environmental impacts in Labuan Bajo.

The sources consulted describe WISATA’s goals and some programme‑wide results, but they do not provide Labuan Bajo‑specific figures on employment, income distribution, community impacts or environmental indicators drawn from the 2017 impact study.

For readers, this means that the Labuan Bajo report is best understood as part of a broader sustainable tourism effort whose detailed local outcomes require direct access to the full impact study.

Broader sustainable tourism work in Labuan Bajo

Subsequent Swisscontact programmes have continued to work on sustainable tourism in Labuan Bajo and Flores, building on earlier WISATA experience.

The SUSTOUR project, for example, supports competitive, sustainable and inclusive destinations in Labuan Bajo/Flores and Wakatobi, emphasising effective destination management, local participation, and alignment with Indonesia’s Integrated Tourism Master Plan for Labuan Bajo.

These later initiatives indicate that Swisscontact and Indonesian authorities have treated Labuan Bajo as a priority tourism hub where sustainable development, community involvement and environmental management are central policy concerns.

Sources

• Swisscontact – Tourism Impacts in Labuan Bajo (PDF)
• GSTC presentation – WISATA II Program (Swisscontact)
• Human Rights in Tourism – Community-based Tourism in Flores: Impacts and Carrying Capacity
• TU Wien – Sustainable Tourism in Flores, Indonesia (Master’s thesis)
• E-journal HI FISIP Unmul – Kerjasama Swiss dan Indonesia dalam Pengembangan Pariwisata
• Tourism4SDGs – WISATA Programme