This assistance activity for forming tourism awareness groups and villages is a small part of a series of extensive matching fund activities. This matching fund activity is a collaboration between Pancasila University and village-owned enterprises (BUMDES) Kerta Raharja, Cibubuan.
In this mentoring activity, the Faculty of Tourism at Pancasila University collaborated with pesonadesa.id to form a tourism awareness group (Pokdarwis) and a tourist village in Cibubuan Village.
Tourism is a mainstay sector that can be used as a value-added for regional income. One way for tourism to become a reliable and sustainable sector is to optimize local resources and develop tourism potential collectively, including the involvement of the local community, so that tourism development can provide better economic, social and cultural benefits for the local community.
An increase in the productive population is, of course, a golden opportunity to move the wheels of the economy. Tourism activities initiated by people of productive age were developed in Cibubuan Village, Sumedang Regency. Sumedang Regency is located about 45 km from Bandung, which is crossed by the main Bandung-Cirebon route, becoming a potential area in tourism links between two cities already advanced in tourism. Sumedang Regency includes two sub-districts, namely North Sumedang and South Sumedang, with 270 villages with various tourism potentials that can be developed as tourism destinations.
Based on the existing strengths and challenges, tourism development in Cibubuan Village must be community-based because tourism activities are in direct contact with the community. Tourism planning and management must also optimize local resources, and the development of tourism potential is carried out collectively, including involving the local community. Only now, there are still very few villages that the local government has legalized as tourist village destinations, including Cibubuan Village. The urgency of legality becomes important in protecting village assets from outside control intervention.
