Tourism and Street Vendors in Yogyakarta, Indonesia
By Dallen Timothy
Informal economic activities are of considerable importance in many tourism destinations. Characteristics of the informal sector generally include lack of legal recognition and registration, evasion of taxes, ease of entry, reliance on indigenous resources, family ownership, small scale of operation, labor intensiveness, skills acquired outside formal education systems, part-time labour, locally-based ventures, and unregulated and competitive markets.This research adopted this framework to investigate the role of street vendors in the informal tourism sector in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In 1995, some 967 vendor stalls were identified along Malioboro Street, the primary tourist shopping area in Yogyakarta, and a thorough inventory recorded the variety and frequency of products being sold. Additionally, 78 surveys of vendors were completed using a systematic sampling method, followed by in-depth interviews with forty vendors and tourism planning officials.
In terms of work attributes, unlike the traditional view of informal ventures, most Yogyakarta vendors worked at their stalls full-time. Earnings were significantly higher than many other informal initiatives, although some variation was found. Clothing was the most common item for sale (262 vendors), followed closely by leather and wood products. Tourist-related goods were concentrated along certain parts of Malioboro within easy access of the railway station and the guest house cluster adjacent to it. Other zones were identified that catered mainly to the domestic market. The street vendors have considerable backward linkages to the community since much of their raw materials and finished products are purchased from both small-scale, informal producers in squatter settlements and formal suppliers. As a result, most of the money stays in the local economy, although some goods are purchased from out-of-province suppliers. Forward linkages are less common.
Until the mid-1980s, the vendors along Malioboro functioned illegally, albeit without much interference from government officials. Beginning in 1984, however, some of the hawkers began to realize that they had common goals and interests, and they sought to be recognized collectively. This led to the formation of a co-operative known as 'Tri Dharma', which gave the vendors legal status under the auspices of a formal organization. In 1993, other vendors formed the 'Pemalni' association, whose purpose was to act as a legal liaison between the peddlers and the municipal government. As of 1995, nearly all vendors belonged to one of these two organizations, and over ninety percent had acquired vending permits.
As part of the vendors' legal status, they are required to pay local taxes, which are collected three times every day and in 1995 ranged from Rp 200 to 600 per day depending on the size of their business and the organization to which they belonged. The vendors had not at that point been involved in tourism planning efforts by government officials. They were, however, instructed by bureaucrats to keep their stalls and the adjacent pavement clean and safe, and officials were planning to provide training programmes for them in areas such as hygiene, accounting, and foreign languages.
The findings demonstrate that the street vendors of Yogyakarta were a heterogeneous group and exhibited several characteristics commonly associated with the informal sector: small scale of operation, individual or family ownership, high labour intensity, and reliance on indigenous resources and skills acquired outside the formal sector. However, other characteristics contrasted with those described in literature. Most vendors work at their stalls full-time and few were migrants from other provinces. They are legally recognized, licensed, enumerated, and taxed, and they have their own business associations. Furthermore, the claim that informal-sector activities are easy to enter should be qualified for Yogyakarta. The spaces are already crowded and there are now legal and association mechanisms for controlling small-scale entrepreneurs. It is clear that the street vendors in Yogyakarta do not completely fit the informal-sector stereotype. They can at best be considered only semi-informal owing to the considerable official recognition and regulation of their activities. This study shows that, with modernization and as governments become more involved in controlling the nature of the resident-visitor encounter, the clear-cut distinction that has traditionally been drawn between formal and informal tourism activities is becoming increasingly blurred.
Dallen Timothy is Assistant Professor at the School of Human Movement, Sport and Leisure Studies, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio 43403, USA.