Sasak traditional villages: a tourism potential and conservation effort for culture and plants

In the millennial era, social-community structure is increasingly urbanised, that might loss of their original roots. For local communities, the loss of culture is articulated by a loss of identity. One of the efforts is to preserve culture and also plants by traditional villages. The other is to encourage government to increase number of traditional villages by declaring “Cultural Tourism Villages”. This study aims to unravel a potential tourism of seven Sasak traditional villages which, among other things, consist of traditional buildings, art performances, plant usage, and other economic potentials that could be created. The study was conducted by visiting and interviewing 35 local residents in seven Sasak traditional villages. The results indicate that Sasak traditional villages provides tangible benefits, such as job opportunities or additional income, and intangible benefits, such as preservation of local culture, including cultural and plant knowledge. Sasak traditional villages provide food security for their people, especially as sources of vegetables and fruits, so that they do not depend so much on the availability of consumer goods in traditional markets, which are subject to price fluctuations. Also, this study identifies two main actors of Sasak traditional villages, which are the community itself, and the visitors.