PARTICIPATORY RURAL APPRAISAL AS A COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT-BASED TOURISM VILLAGE DEVELOPMENT METHOD

Abstract

This article is motivated by the interest of tourists visiting the tourist attraction area which is increasing from year to year, so that the area has a potential that deserves to be developed seriously. One of the interesting areas is Gemah Beach Tourism which is located in Keboireng Village, Besuki District, Tulungagung Regency. Geographically, Gemah Beach is famous for the beauty of the sunrise decorated with brown sand beaches which can attract tourists to visit the beach. However, the community's ability to develop tourism potential is still lacking so the utilization of potential areas has not been maximized. Therefore, the community and village government, assisted by Youth Organizations, took the initiative to form a Kelompok Sadar Wisata (Pokdarwis) by applying the Participatory Rural Appraisal method or a community empowerment-based method. The method used in this research is a descriptive method using a qualitative approach. Where data collection is done by interview, observation, and documentation. The research subjects were Lejar Misuwur Pokdarwis members, the people of Keboireng Village, and visitors to Gemah Beach. The results obtained from this study show that the Kelompok Sadar Wisata (Pokdarwis) Lejar Misuwur has succeeded in making Gemah Beach more widely known by tourists thanks to the involvement of the community in all tourism village development activities or with the application of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). With PRA, they realized that many development programs entered the village but poor participation and the people could not make it happen because they did not have a model that had been developed from adequate experience.