KEY CHALLENGES

5 communities

X amount increase in visitors

Annual revenue on average

KEY ACTIVITIES

Needs assessment research.

Capacity building

Linkage to Market

OBJECTIVES & APPROACH

Fair Tourism collaborates with five Sasak communities in Mandalika to co-create a community tourism program, in order to employ tourism as a driving force for regenerative development. The final objective is to make communities the sole owners and beneficiary of the program, meaning that they will be able to independently manage the tourism program, gain income from tourism activities, and drive community development through a community fund.

Fair Tourism employs a bottom-up approach that starts from grassroot level and values local participation and implementation, in which local communities are involved at all stages of the decision process. We collaborate with local partners to explore the local socio-cultural context with a rigorous scientific approach, and to engage local communities following the highest standard of ethics and transparency. We aim to deliver our training with a combination of local knowledge and international expertise, in order to provide high-quality tourism management tools for local communities, while remaining rooted in the traditional indigenous spirit.

WHY IT MATTERS

The Sasak community in Lombok has faced rapid change during the Mandalika Tourism development project. Many families were asked to leave their ancestral land, facing uncertainty about their homes, livelihoods, and traditions. What was once a place deeply rooted in daily life and heritage has become part of a fast-growing tourism landscape — one that reshapes what the community can expect from its future.

As tourism becomes an inevitable part of everyday life, it brings both opportunities and challenges. The value of traditional knowledge and cultural heritage is shifting, and without meaningful inclusion, communities risk being left behind in the trajectory of development.

Moved by this transformation, Fair Tourism is committed to preserving the spirit of the Sasak community. We collaborate with local institutions and send our researchers to explore how tourism could contribute to community development — not by replacing tradition, but by strengthening it. Our goal is to provide the means for communities to share their culture through regenerative tourism and to thrive in this new future.

This is the story of that journey.