Ecotourism Budgeting & Financial Policy

A village ecotourism operation fails quietly when nobody has costed it. This session works forward from what it costs to run a mangrove trail or a boat trip, and only then asks how the surplus should be divided.

1. Introduction to budget policy#

A budget policy answers three questions in order: where does the money come from, what does it cost to earn it, and who decides what happens to what is left. Starting from the third question — the percentage split — is the mistake the session is designed to correct.

2. Learning objectives#

Participants should leave able to list their revenue sources, separate operating cost from maintenance cost, calculate a surplus, draft an allocation proposal, and explain a financial record to someone who was not in the room.

3. Sources of income#

Each village listed its own sources of income. The lists are recorded in full in the comparison table below; they are the factual output of the group work and are reproduced without additions.

4. Operating costs#

Operating cost is what is spent to open the destination on a normal day: guide fees, boat fuel, consumables, cleaning, utilities and the small repairs that keep a route usable. If operating cost is not covered, the operation consumes its own capital and stops without warning.

5. Maintenance costs#

Maintenance is the cost that villages most often forget: boardwalk replacement, boat and engine service, life jacket renewal, signage, and the rehabilitation of a damaged area. It is predictable in the long run and invisible in the short run, which is exactly why it is written into the policy rather than left to a good year.

6. Gross income and surplus#

Gross income is what visitors pay. Surplus is gross income minus operating cost minus maintenance reserve. Only the surplus is available for allocation — dividing the gross figure is how an operation pays itself into deficit.

7. Benefit allocation policy#

Allocation answers who receives what, and on what basis. The session distinguished four claims that any mangrove ecotourism operation has to recognise: the people who run it, the partners who bring visitors, the area that has to be protected, and the community that carries the opportunity cost.

8. Financial recording#

The session proposed a minimum record: date, visitor group, service sold, amount received, amount spent, and the running balance — kept daily, reviewed monthly, and available to the village. A record that only one person can read is not a record.

9. Transparency and accountability#

Transparency is a routine, not a gesture: a monthly statement, posted where the community can see it, with the allocation actually applied shown next to the allocation agreed. The session's position is that a discrepancy explained is worth more than a report that looks perfect.

10. Sugian group work#

Desa Sugian produced a revenue list and an allocation proposal. The proposal divides the surplus into 40 per cent for the management body, 15 per cent for partners, 30 per cent for conservation, and 15 per cent for a further revenue-sharing category that the discussion did not yet define.

The Sugian group also discussed a rental charge for UMKM stalls at Rp 50,000 per month, recorded as a proposal and explicitly not final.

11. Seruni Mumbul group work#

Desa Seruni Mumbul produced its revenue list — ticket, canoe, camping, tent and equipment rental, business stalls, stall rent and parking — but did not produce a final percentage formula. No allocation is published for Seruni Mumbul, because publishing an assumed split would misrepresent a village that has not decided.

12. Comparison of the two results#

The comparison below records the two positions side by side. The difference is not a gap in competence; it is a difference in where each village stands in its own agreement process.

13. Output#

• Two documented revenue lists.
• One allocation proposal (Sugian) with one open question.
• One open community agreement process (Seruni Mumbul).
• A shared financial recording format and a transparency routine.

14. Expected outcome#

Each village can present a costed, explainable financial arrangement to its own forum, and can show the community how the money it receives is used.

15. Recommendations#

• Settle the purpose of the Sugian final 15 per cent in a village forum before the policy is adopted.
• Complete the Seruni Mumbul agreement process before any percentage is published.
• Adopt the daily record now, at current volume, so that the first monthly statement establishes the habit.
• Treat the UMKM rental figure as a proposal until it is decided.

Workshop discussion. The Sugian allocation is a proposal; the Seruni Mumbul formula does not exist yet.

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