You comes happy, go home smarter is the motto of Kembang Arum Tourist Village that written on the gate of this place. Entering this village, you will be welcomed with Salak plantation on the roadside of the village. Green rice fields, the river with clear water and fresh air increase the beauty of this village. Kembang Arum Tourists Village is about 25 kilometers from the city of Yogyakarta.
Hery Kustriyatmo as the originator utilizes an area of 22 hectares consisting of community land, village treasury and belonging to the Pratista studio becomes this tourist village. This Village has been visited by around 65,000 people both local and foreign tourists. It proves that the village has its own potential in tourism. At this time, tourism village programs were encouraged to optimize rural potential. This is in line with the concept of sustainable development that is interpreted as good management to create a balance between human needs to improve lifestyles by maintaining natural resources and ecosystems on which we and the future generation depend. Sustainable development is economic growth with the protection of the quality of the environment that supports each other. The implication of this concept involves cooperation between initiators and community members who occupy the environment (Mintzer, 1992, quoted from http://www.gdrc.org/sustdev/definitions.html).
The Origin of Kembang Arum Tourism Village
The beginning of the idea of making this tourist village originated when Pak Hery Kustriyatmos wife wanted to find a house until she found a house in Kembang Arum. Then, this new house used as Prastita painting studio. Starting from this studio, Pak Hery captured the potential of Kembang Arum and makes it a tourist village. Kembang Arum is one of the poorest or underdeveloped villages in Sleman district, long before evolving as now. The desire to advance this village between the originator and local people made Kembang Arum admired and visited by the tourist nowadays. During the development, Pak Hery and the community faced several problems such as financial. The initial funds to build this place came from Pratista Studios cash that managed by Pak Hery, while the budget from the community was not available. The problem was overcome by doing development in a gradual and continuous manner.
The other problem comes from the young generation. In general, the youth in this village began to abandon the agriculture cultivation activities that make their abilities dropped dramatically compared to the previous generation. Finally, the manager created an infrastructure to keep the residents interest in the villages potential. Besides that, the influence of outside parties such as the people who want to buy land in this village used as private housing also becomes another problem during the development of this tourist village.
The activities in this tourist village involve the role of the local people in Kembang Arum. Tour packages that are included in the agenda of the Kembang Arum Tourism Village derived from the local daily activities that carried out by the community.
Pak Saiman, one of the local people told that there are several events that we have conducted to increase the visitors in this village. One of them is Mass Massage Festival, where the local people act as massagers and the visitors becomes patient. Economically, the local people get income directly from the festival.
Besides that, this village also win several achievements such as 1st winner of Hatinya PKK (family welfare development) in the District level, 1st winner for National Level of Cleanliness and Food Security, 1st winner of Jamu Making in Sleman District (Jamu Pulih Raga), 1st winner of 2008 Tourism Village Competition in Sleman Regency, and 1st winner of Cultural Arts and Exhibition in Sleman district.? These achievements show that the initiator and local people success to develop this village. For control and supervision, Pak Hery assisted by 5 creative teams and one of them is Pak Marsaid (the head of this tourism village). Besides that, Pak Hery comes to this village to oversee the development of this village almost every day. With this kind of supervision, the continuity of the development of the Kembang Arum Tourism Village maintained. Moreover, the community also gets advantages in economics and socio-cultural education.
