- Indonesian homestays provide struggling families with an alternative revenue source while offering tourists a more authentic experience
- But government concerns over accommodation standards have slowed development as authorities seek to better regulate the industry
Harry Gobel's first homestay in his native Gorontalo, a province in eastern Indonesia, was so popular that the local government repeatedly got him to lead training sessions on running this class of low-budget guest accommodation.
But then suddenly things changed and a year ago officials told him to shut down his homestay operation.
Gobel and his wife Mimin had been hosting foreign tourists in their home for more than a decade when the government ordered them to close their doors. Locals had begun complaining about loud foreigners, while taxi drivers diverted tourists to hotels, claiming the homestay was already closed, or illegal. Gobel suspects this misinformation was a result of hotels pressuring drivers, possibly with the promise of a commission.
In this remote part of Indonesia, on the sprawling island of Sulawesi, most tourists are only passing through on their way to the diving hotspots of the Togean Islands, or Bunaken in Manado. During busy periods, some even sleep on floors wherever accommodation will let them. The Gobels say their homestay was rarely unoccupied.
Homestays can be an attractive business for homeowners seeking an alternative source of income, but at the local level " as the Gobels have found out " the initiative is not always welcome.
In a place like Gorontalo, where the local government is devoting resources to developing the area into a tourism hotspot, homestay development can stall a hotel boom. But in more rural areas, local people live in top spots for eco-tourism, and it can provide families with much-needed income.
When their livelihood was threatened last year by the government, the Gobels and their two children moved to a village on the edge of their city. They built two cottages next to their new house, which is surrounded by rice fields set against a lake. Their sago palm walls are almost see-through, sounds permeate, and the day's heat can be hard to bear. Chickens peck at your feet if you sit too long. Once, when a local learned that it was a tourist homestay, he gasped: "That's a house for goats!"
But the couple do not intend to cater to tourists more used to traditional Western-style hotel accommodation, instead offering the authentic experience of an Indonesian home. The popularity of their homestays illustrates just how feasible the business model is.
"Instead of you experiencing our way of life, we (should) change ourselves to live the way you live? That's not good," Gobel says, as he sits underneath his handcrafted, grass-roofed patio, where guests drink their morning coffee. He and Mimin, in their 30s, rarely go a week without guests, and their earnings help pay the children's school fees.
We are developing guidelines on Indonesian (accommodation) standards, but not ignoring international standards, especially regarding cleanliness and Wi-fiAnneke Prasyanti, tourism officer in charge of homestay development in Indonesia
In 2016, Indonesia's tourism ministry said it would earmark US$4.2 billion to create 100,000 homestays as an alternative to hotel accommodation for the country's annual 15 million foreign visitors and almost 280 million domestic tourists.
However, despite the state government initially embracing the low-capital, locally owned business model, the initiative became "too complicated", according to the Indonesian tourism ministry's officer in charge of homestay development, Anneke Prasyanti.
Prasyanti now leads the programme to add 10,000 homestays in 200 villages across the Indonesian archipelago " a much smaller number than the original government target of 100,000 in 2016. Following guidelines developed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, officials aim to put in place certain standards regarding the facilities at each of the open-house residences in the scheme.
"We are developing guidelines on Indonesian (accommodation) standards, but not ignoring international standards, especially regarding cleanliness and Wi-fi," Prasyanti says. A Western toilet would be a standard, but she admits it does not make sense as a requirement in some rural areas. So far, only about 20 per cent of the 10,000 potential homestays meet the required standards.
Among those that fail to meet guidelines are thin-walled cottages where roosters awaken guests, while some homestays are in very remote areas where a phone signal isn't guaranteed.
Still, tourists can be immersed in local culture, rather than being sheltered from it, and homestays like the Gobels' are feeding the demand for more authentic travel despite not fitting the government's model and receiving no financial help.
Close to nearby Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi province, where thousands of visitors flock every year to visit the coral reefs, one local councillor sees the potential for homestays in his village of Sawangan.
"In a village atmosphere, when you're sleeping at night, there are animals busy sounding off outside," says Harly Rodinsulu, the 29-year-old councillor who is pushing for investment in Sawangan homestays. "In the city it's cars and police sirens, but in the village it's nature."
Rodinsulu's village is home to hundreds of iconic standing tombs decorated with culturally significant images that he thinks could pull in tourists from Manado, despite the hour's drive from the city into the mountains. Tourists could stay with locals, but the homeowners need to be convinced that it will earn them a satisfactory income, he says.
They are faced again with the same conundrum as other homestays: where to draw the line between "living like a local" and meeting Western standards.
According to international standards, kitchens should be separate from the living areas, shampoo and toilet paper are to be provided, and the home should be accessible to modes of transport, among other criteria. Yet some tourists, especially those hoping to get off the beaten track, may not need or want those sorts of amenities.
"People are always talking about how to get capital, but for us the capital is the local culture, and we have a lot of it," says Feri Nur Oktaviani, director of economic empowerment at Aman. The organisation supports five indigenous-run homestays across the country, the most famous being in Sungai Utik in Kalimantan, in Indonesian Borneo.
Aman has been trying to increase incomes in historically poorer areas, which are often at risk of potentially exploitative development.
In Kalimantan, Aman guests sacrifice a phone signal and privacy for a stay in customary longhouses where they eat traditional food. Guests' one major requirement, Oktaviani says, is a separate bathroom.
If we start making our accommodation look like a hotel, then (our) culture will be a victimFeri Nur Oktaviani, director of economic empowerment at Aman
Homestays are not the only cheap option though, and owners must compete with traditional budget hotels that offer accommodation in the same price range, such as RedDoorz, Airy Rooms and OYO.
Sella Runtulalo directs a local environmental NGO in Manado called Manengkel that develops projects to engage local communities. A few years ago the organisation began offering guest rooms.
"We definitely cannot raise our prices at all, because RedDoorz is so cheap," Sella says from her office next to a room of five bunk beds rented to visitors.
At Manengkel, tourists can either pay to stay or apply to become a volunteer at the organisation. With the extra income that renting rooms provides, the group, which relies on grant money, can cover the essentials of electricity, food and water.
"But in the end, tourists are just looking for a cheap place to stay," Runtulalo says.
An hour away in Sawangan, councillor Rodinsulu knows that once earnings permit, the village's homestays will be able to offer soft mattresses or even separate bathrooms, as they gradually inch towards the more comfortable standards offered by their competitors.
For Oktaviani at Aman, where guests stay is not as important as the mission of some communities to preserve their culture in the face of business expansion.
"If we start making our accommodation look like a hotel, then (our) culture will be a victim," he says.
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