Education as the Core of Cultural Governance in Tourism A Tiered Integrative Model
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Abstract
The governance of Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCE) in tourism has relied primarily on legal protection, preservation policy, and economic utilisation, yet these instruments do not by themselves produce cultural understanding among tourism actors. The persistent difficulty lies in the gap between cultural protection and cultural interpretation in tourism practice. This study develops a conceptual framework positioning tourism education not as a complement to legal and economic instruments but as the mechanism that connects them. Using a qualitative conceptual design, the study analyses Indonesian cultural and tourism policy, national and regional competency standards, and the tourism education literature, read against international scholarship on culture-based tourism education. The analysis finds that Indonesian tourism curricula remain oriented toward technical and service competencies, so that cultural understanding develops informally if at all, and TCE is readily promoted as an attraction while remaining inadequately understood as a living system of values. In response, the study proposes an education-centred model of cultural governance built on three interrelated dimensions: tiered learning, which advances cultural competency progressively from foundational awareness to strategic governance capacity; integrative governance, which links legal frameworks, educational institutions, tourism industries, and cultural communities; and differentiative curriculum design, which accommodates Indonesia's diverse local cultural contexts while maintaining national competency standards. The framework yields recommendations spanning curriculum reorientation, community-based experiential learning, ethical institutional partnerships, cross-sector coordination, and the enrichment of regional competency standards such as the ASEAN MRA-TP with substantive national cultural content. Conceptual in nature, the model requires empirical testing, but it offers a theoretical and policy foundation for curriculum reform and culturally sustainable tourism governance in Indonesia.
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