scholarly journals Coping with COVID-19: The Resilience and Transformation of Community-Based Tourism in Brunei Darussalam

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8618
Author(s):  
Najib Noorashid ◽  
Wei Lee Chin

The COVID-19 pandemic heavily impacted the travel and tourism industry, economies, livelihoods, public services, and opportunities globally. This is also observed in the small country of Brunei. As one of the few countries that have successfully mitigated COVID-19 transmissions, Brunei is slowly rebuilding its tourism industry through its community-based tourism (CBT). Following Sharma et al.’s resilience-based framework for reviving the tourism industry post‑COVID-19 established in 2021, this study incorporates responses from semi-structured interviews with 16 local CBT owners on the challenges, the management, and the CBT initiatives during the height of the pandemic until today. These initiatives include diversifying more tour packages and utilising local resources and products. Despite the lockdown imposed by the government, which suspended businesses and restricted all travelling, local CBT operations flourished, generated more income for the owners, and created job opportunities for the community. Such efforts have caused the public to appreciate local cultures, the environment, and ultimately increase CBT experiences in the country. While shedding light on Brunei’s unique management of its tourism industry during the pandemic, this paper also demonstrates theoretical and conceptual contributions to the recent literature of resilient and transformational tourism and provide suggestions on how to manage CBT operations during these challenging times.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-165

Brunei is seeing a proliferation of bottled companies established in the country in the last decade, driven by cheap water supplies, easily available water filtering systems and demand by the public. This research found 16 ‘companies,’ ‘producing’ and distributing over 34 brands of bottled waters in the country. Since bottled water industry is ‘popular,’ it is necessary to understand how the industry is being monitored and regulated by the government as it involved products consumed by the public. Since most of the bottled water companies use water drawn from the pipes supplied by the government, it is also important to understand how the government is protecting, monitoring and regulating this valuable resource from exploitation. This paper is a preliminary research on the bottled water industry in Brunei Darussalam.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
I Made Ari Kapela

Indonesian Criminal Code Bill proposal, suddenly became a hot issue after Indonesia commemorate their 74th Independence Day. The executive and legislative accelerated completion of Indonesian Criminal Code Bill (ICCB) at Fairmont Hotel, Jakarta. Many parties have been urging the government to revise some outdated articles since the penal code was a product of Dutch colonialism in the past. Three crucial topics were discussed and added to the draft regarding blasphemy to president, crimes against morality and decency, as well as specific intent crime. Apparently, some parties were unsatisfied with the draft. Waves of uproar sprang up between mid-September and early October 2019. the demonstrators considered that there are ten controversial articles in the ICCB that have vague enforcement parameters. To reduce the public tension, the government agreed to delay the ICCB ratification that, according to public includes multiple problematic articles. President Joko Widodo stated that more input would be conducted before disseminate the latest ICCB information to public. The postponement would be evoked after the new set of parliaments is inaugurated. Albeit being postponed, Tourism practitioner in Bali experiencing significant loss of tourists visit due to the issues. It is expected in future; the government would involve tourism practitioner in group discussion before setting new regulations that may affect the vital industry of Indonesia.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Khamsavay Pasanchay

<p>In many developing countries, Community-Based Tourism (CBT) is regarded as a sustainable tourism development tool as well as a catalyst for rural community development through the involvement of local people and the improvement of the standard of living. To extend the involvement of the local community in CBT, homestay tourism is a form of operation unit and its concept aims to facilitate individual household social-cultural and economic benefit from CBT directly. Although homestays are widely regarded as providing better livelihoods directly to the homestay operators, it is not clear to what extent homestay operations actually contribute to the sustainable livelihood of homestay operators when considering the wider livelihood implications. This research seeks to explore this gap by analysing homestay operators through the lens of Sustainable Livelihood theory (Scoones, 1998). This research adopts a post-positivist paradigm with qualitative methodology. Taking a case study approach, semi-structured interviews and observations were employed to collect primary data from community leaders, heads and deputy heads of the tourist guides, and homestay operators themselves.  Results of the study found that although homestay tourism was initially established by the government. The study also found the main characteristics of the homestay operation are in a small size with a limitation of bedrooms, and a few family members involved in hosting tourists, which are husband, wife, and an adult child. All of these people are unpaid labour but receive benefits from the sharing of food and shelter. The study also uncovered that cash-based income, gender empowerment enhancement, and environmental enhancement were the positive impacts of homestay tourism on the livelihoods of the homestay operators, and these positive livelihood outcomes were in line with the original sustainable livelihood framework. In addition, cultural revitalisation was found as an emerged indicator of the sustainable livelihood outcomes, which was used to extend the revised framework. However, the study discovered that opportunity costs, culture shock, and conflict with villagers were negative implications affecting sustainable livelihood outcomes of the homestay operators. The revised Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF) suggests that if these negative implications are mitigated, the overall livelihood outcomes will be even greater. The results of this study are expected to provide a deeper understanding of how the impacts of homestay tourism on the sustainable livelihood of the homestay operators.</p>


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mei Chee Yung

Even though Islam is the official religion of Brunei Darussalam, more efforts are still needed to bolster functionality and relevance of Islam to the country, and implement an Islamic system of governance. This paper sets out to devise strategies in order to do so, to be implemented by three main stakeholders: Government civil service, the public and the international community. Five specific strategies are devised: formulate a single common understanding of Islamic governance; ensure commitment from top management; train and develop competence; engage the public; and engage the international community. The first three strategies relate to the Government, the fourth to the public, and the fifth to the international community. And at the core, of course, is Tauḥīd, or strong Faith, which would act as a guide to help individuals, the main agents of change, make appropriate decisions in accordance to the teachings of Islam, implement the five strategies to strengthen functional relevance of Islam in Brunei, and be able to work towards achieving the Maqāṣid of the Sharī’ah.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Schmidt ◽  
Alex Altshuler

Purpose This paper aims to discuss how the tourism industry is contending with the economic and interorganizational challenges wrought by the COVID-19 outbreak and heightened by a lack of communication between the government and local businesses in the state of Israel. The researchers examine the dependency of the tourism industry on the general preparation programs that were developed and are currently being deployed by the relevant national stakeholders and question whether instead, it should use the pandemic as a catalyst for formulating its own nuanced tourism-travel-and-hospitality-oriented strategies and procedures. Design/methodology/approach Applying an ethnographic-based mix-methods research approach, this paper draws on insights from data compiled by fusing existing theoretical and emerging practical knowledge with empirical research (qualitative and quantitative) conducted among numerous relevant macro (governmental/centralized industry) and micro (hotels, travel and tourism operators and service providers) stakeholders as well as potential consumers. Findings It is essential that national and local government bodies form collaborative interorganizational relationships with local stakeholders to jointly activate case-specific hospitality and travel-specific risk mitigation management strategies. Moreover, the pandemic laid bare the tentative and fragile nature of the globalized tourism industry supply and demand chains, a condition that may be remedied via a pivot toward using national or even regional supply chains and goods and service providers. Within Israel, such changes could lead to increased economic benefits that extend beyond the tourism industry to provide certain security-related benefits. Originality/value Relating to idiosyncratic factors relevant to an Israeli cultural context, this paper uses the ethnographic field-borne familiarity of the researchers with the tourism and travel industries in Eilat and the Dead Sea to offer applicable suggestions for leveraging certain industry resources to both meet the demands of the present-day circumstances and cultivate a multifaceted organizational web of macro and micro social, economic and environmental networks so as to foster a more diversified and therefore resilient local tourism and travel economy.


Author(s):  
І. І. Шупик

Обґрунтована важливість туристичної галузі якодного з перспективних напрямів вирішення широкогокола макроекономічних проблем у період трансфор-мації суспільства, що дозволить стабілізувати соці-ально-економічну ситуацію у країні й поліпшити які-сні характеристики життя населення. Визначеніпровідні напрями впливу туристичної діяльності нарозвиток країни та причини, що їх обумовлюють.Наголошується, що досягнення поставлених цілейбуде можливим лише за умови послідовних і відпові-дальних дій влади, її постійної взаємодії з громадські-стю, бізнесом. Proved the importance of the tourism industry as one of the promising directions of solving a wide range of macroeconomic problems in the period of transformation of society, which will allow stabilizujace socio - economic situation in the country and to improve the quality characteristics of living. Defined major directions of the impact of tourism activities on socio-economic development of the country and the reasons for their cause. Emphasized that the achievement of goals is possible only if a consistent and responsible actions of the government, its constant interaction with the public, business.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-68
Author(s):  
Mahboob Ali Dehraj ◽  
Inayatullah Bhatti

Madrassa plays a vital role in religious education of Muslim. And a very great number of pass out graduate from these institution have not provided opportunities from the Government, Majority of the graduates are living below the poverty line. For this study st Objective: a) to identify the economic challenges faced for these Madrassa students. B)  To evaluate the current job opportunities for Madrassa graduates. C) To assess the curriculum adopted in Madrassa for the demand of Markets. D) This study was mixed method research, survey methods and interviews were selected for data collection. The data was collected from Madrassa graduates of three talukas of district Matiari through a questionnaire, while four expert of Madersa education side and four from the public education were selected and semi structured questions were asked from the respondents. Close ended questionnaires were distributed among 200 graduates and collected data were further analyzed. The finding was obtained through a questionnaire that the majority of Madrassa graduates get their jobs as supervision /Pesh imam of Masajid or Madersa teacher or Mozin of Masjid, Their salaries are not sufficient to meet the daily needs of their family. The curriculum of Madrassa are non-religious subjects and technology is in the lowest position.. The study highlights the economic crisis of graduates and recommended that these graduates should provide both modern and Islamic education regarding the need of the time, these students also proved technical education, Government also proved them free interest loan,


Author(s):  
Young-Jae Kim ◽  
E-Sack Kim

Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the public is unable to maintain a proper balance between work and leisure, and an increase in community-based infections is causing severe phobic anxiety. Therefore, the present study investigated the differences in phobic anxiety between work and leisure activities according to optimistic bias among 533 South Korean citizens. Frequency analysis, descriptive statistical analysis, t-tests, and a one-way analysis of variance were conducted to examine the data. The results showed that for leisure activities, women showed a higher perception of phobic anxiety. In addition, the group showing high optimistic bias had a higher perception of phobic anxiety in both work and leisure activity situations. Therefore, support measures to lower phobic anxiety among women are needed at the government level, while support and interest from family members are needed at home. Moreover, local governments must ensure active involvement to mitigate phobic anxiety among individuals, and measures are needed to more actively implement infectious disease prevention behaviors.


2021 ◽  
Vol XIII (1) ◽  
pp. 81-90
Author(s):  
Mayprapawee Varnakomola ◽  

Thailand is hit hard by the impact of the on the COVID 19 situation, to cope with the international boycotts of flights and the lots in revenue from international tourists, the government has shift it attention to domestic tourists. However, the domestic tourism industry is not well prepared for the pandemic situation, lots of people don’t travel as locals fear to be sick and get the disease. So, this study contributes to adding knowledge and understanding of how hotels can best satisfy and meet the needs of domestic tourists in this new COVID 19 pandemic area. The Qualitative research method is used for the collection of data and in-depth and semi-structured interviews were conducted with domestic tourists in Bangkok from November 10, 2020, to November 12, 2020, the interview was focus on domestic tourist personal experiences, opinion and preferences towards different issues related to the pandemic situation and new expectation towards hotel services. Constant Comparison Method is used for analyzing the data collected with ten domestic tourists at Khao San road, Thailand. Results reveal that the domestic tourists visiting Bangkok specific demands travel experience during covers-19 starting which leads to personalize demand to manage by the hotel in order to fulfill the need and provide fruitful experience including indoor activates and recreation events


Author(s):  
Fahmi Ibrahim ◽  
Hazimah Suhip ◽  
Kabiru Maitama Kura ◽  
Liana H. M. Noor

With the high demands to provide service quality, growing workforce, and globalization of economy, HR has transformed into an inevitable power of technology that transforms HRM into electronic human resource management (E-HRM) systems. Brunei Darussalam without exception is also practicing E-HRM in the government sector called government employee management system (GEMS). This chapter investigates the user satisfaction of E-HRM by examining the current status of GEMS in Brunei Darussalam. The user satisfaction was studied through seven elements: the implementation of E-HRM, training, user-friendliness, infrastructure, data security, technical support, and user support. Qualitative interview and descriptive quantitative method were conducted on HR officers from the public organization. Findings revealed that the GEMS are not able to provide satisfactory system. This chapter has developed a theoretical framework as a recommendation to integrate relevant elements, together with the influence of age, gender, and years of service that impact user satisfaction.


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