Abstract
When a disaster destroys historical buildings, it is a challenge to maintain the authenticity and originality of the buildings as a heritage tourism site, and their destruction impacts the local community, whose economy is dependent on this heritage. This paper discusses the reinventing of heritage tourism, using the case of Kotagede, Yogyakarta, which was hit by a 5.5 magnitude earthquake in 2006. The paper shows that the earthquake has refreshed the cultural landscape, and that new tourism packages using the story of heritage in combination with the earthquake event have also led to new economic opportunities. We show that the process of reinventing the post-disaster heritage tourism was however challenged by the problems of administrative versus cultural boundaries, confusing criteria concerning heritage products, conflicts in the building restoration process, a lack of interest among younger generations in culture and tradition, and unsustainable government programmes. Based on this, it can be concluded that the overlapping of the post-disaster recovery process with the reinvention of heritage tourism products may permanently change the authenticity of the cultural landscape and lead to a shift from organic place-making to planned placemaking processes.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 136-150 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Journal of Heritage Tourism |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Early online date | 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:External organisations have supported the recovery of Kotagede in many ways, for example by providing economic recovery programmes and restoring traditional houses. Two days after the earthquake, the Centre for Heritage Conservation of the Department of Architecture and Planning in the Faculty of Engineering at Universitas Gadjah Mada set up a heritage conservation programme called Pusaka Jogja Bangkit (Jogja Heritage Revival; JHR). This revitalisation programme was supported by collaborative parties from external organisations, including the Jogja Heritage Society, the Centre for Heritage Conservation, the Indonesian Network for Heritage Conservation, and ICOMOS Indonesia. The local community organisations were invited to actively participate in the programmes. Adishakti () mentioned that the programme focuses on building the local economy by strengthening both the tangible and the intangible heritage. Some training was provided to enhance the capacity of the organisations in both disaster mitigation and tourism development. The programmes for tourism development were introduced after the restoration of the houses was completed.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Keywords
- Kotagede
- Reinventing
- earthquake
- heritage
- recovery
- tourism