Landscape planning for cultural tourism region of laweyan batik kampong, Surakarta

Abstract

Indonesia is a country with high diversity of cultures. They reflect the history, development, and civilization of Indonesia as a great nation. One of the cultural heritage which has been officially recognized by UNESCO is Batik. Laweyan Batik Kampong is a historical area and has been a centre of batik industry since eighteenth century and it has formed an unique cultural landscape. Developing this area into a cultural tourism landscape with appropriate landscape planning, will encourage the sustainability of culture-socio life in local batik community, the preservation of physical and cultural landscape, and the security of local economy. This study aims to develop Laweyan Batik Kampong into a cultural tourism landscape by analyzing physical and community aspects. Descriptive quantitative method was used to analyze the data both statistically and spatially. Physical aspect was analyzed to obtain the cultural tourism development potential which has three assessment aspects namely cultural quality of region ( the criteria for assessment was adopted from ICOMOS 1999, The Burra Charter) , suitability of region ( the criteria for assessment was adopted from director general for tourism product development, 2000), and quality of visual-aesthetic of environment (the criteria was adopted from Nasar (1998), Burra Charter (1999), and Carmona (2006)). Local community aspect was analyzed to recognize the community acceptability (criteria for assessment was adopted from Koentjaraningrat in Yusiana, 2007). Study result shows that Laweyan Batik Kampong has opportunity to be developed into a cultural tourism landscape. This potential could be developed based on potential development zone generated from the analysis. There are two development zones namely tourism centre zone and tourism supporting zone. The centre zone will accommodate all facilities which will be used to cater cultural tourism activity, such as edu-tourism (batik tourism), and culture tourism (cultural, architectural, and historical tourism). The tourism supporting zone will accommodate the facility which supports cultural tourism such as entrance, visitor centre, and other supporting facilities. Landscape plan is derived from developing the two zones by accommodating the cultural interpretative tourism concept, tourism activity and facility development. Local government must support the development of Laweyan Batik Kampong by establishing the legal aspect to protect the heritage and socializing it to the people. I strongly recommend local government to apply the landscape planning I have created in Laweyan Batik Kampong to create a sustainable cultural tourism that consider local community, local economy, socio-culture, and environment.

Indonesia terkenal sebagai negara yang kaya akan keragaman seni budaya tradisional. Salah satu warisan seni budaya yang terkenal dan bahkan telah diakui dunia dengan ditetapkannya sebagai Budaya Tak Benda Warisan Manusia oleh UNESCO, adalah batik. Pengakuan ini tentu saja menuntut tanggung jawab yang besar untuk terus menjaga dan melestarikannya sepanjang masa, dari generasi ke generasi. Batik merupakan salah satu bentuk warisan budaya tradisional yang sudah ditekuni masyarakat di Pulau Jawa sejak dulu. Salah satu tempat yang terkenal sebagai produsen batik di Pulau Jawa, khususnya di Jawa Tengah, adalah Kampung Laweyan. Kampung Laweyan merupakan kawasan sentra industri batik yang unik, spesifik dan bersejarah. Laweyan mulai tumbuh sebagai pusat perdagangan di jaman Kerajaan Pajang pada 1500-an dengan sandang sebagai komoditas utamanya. Upaya pelestarian budaya di Kampung Laweyan yang sangat identik dengan batik ini, ternyata telah menjadi perhatian pemerintah setempat. Hal ini terbukti dengan dicanangkannya Kampung Laweyan sebagai kampung batik dan dijadikan sebagai daerah tujuan wisata Kota Solo. Namun sangat disayangkan bahwa upaya pencanangan Kampung Laweyan sebagai kampung batik dan daerah tujuan wisata ini tidak diiringi dengan perencanaan kawasan yang optimal.