Tourism Village Carbon Footprint after COVID-19 Pandemic: A Challenge to Sustainability

The tourism industry is the most significant global Green House Gases (GHGs) contributor, which is often specifically produced by exploratory activities. This leads to the performance of several actions to reduce carbon emissions and maintain sustainable development. Since the Indonesian Tourism Village is a “carbon emission contributor and COVID-19 pandemic impact victim”, the low-carbon exploration should be necessarily implemented to achieve sustainability. Therefore, this study aims to determine the carbon footprint of solid waste produced by visitors, population, and buildings within seven certified Tourism Villages in Central Java (Kandri, Lerep, Samiran, Karangrejo, Candirejo, Samiran, and Dieng Kulon) and Special Region of Yogyakarta (Pentingsari) Provinces, Indonesia. This was conducted through a mixed method containing quantitative and analytical techniques. The quantitative method was conducted through a field survey of seven Tourism Villages to obtain and analyze data on the population, infrastructures, situations, and environments. Meanwhile, the analytical method was conducted by calculating the carbon footprint of solid waste and buildings produced by seven Tourism Villages. The results showed that Dieng Kulon had the biggest CO2 emissions from all sources (solid waste produced by visitors, population, and buildings). In addition, Candirejo had the lowest solid waste emission produced by visitors and the population before the impact of the pandemic. During the COVID-19 period, Kandri and Samiran were observed as the lowest contributors of solid-waste CO2 emission produced by visitors and buildings, respectively. This indicated that the sustainability of Tourism Villages helped in increasing income as well as obtaining a cleaner and healthier environment. After the pandemic period, these villages should subsequently lead the economic recovery of rural communities to achieve sustainable development goals through the reduction of CO2 emission. In addition, the “The Low-Carbon Sustainable Tourism Village Model” was proposed by this study to answer the challenge of sustainability.