Measuring the Sustainability of Marine Ecotourism in Kiluan Marine Tourism Park, Lampung Province, Indonesia

Abstract

Ecotourism is a non-extractive economic exploitation activity that can minimize damage to natural resources and biodiversity loss so that it is often claimed to have great sustainability performance, marine ecotourism is no exception. However, this claim needs to be proven, including the terms of ecological, socio-cultural, economic, technological and institutional dimensions. This research was conducted in Teluk Kiluan, Tanggamus Regency, Lampung Province, Indonesia from September to December 2021. This study aims to measure the sustainability of marine ecotourism. The multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) method was applied to determine the five dimensions of sustainability using RAPFISH Software. On a scale of 0-100, it is concluded that the sustainability indexes for the five dimensions are 57.21, 51.08, 42.40, 42.18 and 34.98 respectively, which means that the first two index values are quite sustainable while the rest are less sustainable. To increase the aggregate sustainability of this ecotourism activity, the lowest average ordinated value should be the top priority by selecting 4 sensitive factors (attributes). The sequence of priority scales is thus: (a) institutional dimension; (b) infrastructure/technology dimension; (c) economic dimension; (d) social and cultural dimensions; and (e) ecological dimension.