Itinerary, Information, Denial: Local Travel Agents and Tourist Flows Governance in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

ABSTRACT Tourism-caused overcrowding is often projected as the failure of governance. While tourism governance consists of myriad aspects and actors, this paper focuses on aspects of tourist flows from the perspective of tourism entrepreneurs. The question of how local travel agents govern tourist flows is addressed by acknowledging their power in influencing the (un)crowdedness and (un)sustainability of a destination; and aims to understand the modes of governance that local travel agents perform in “flowing” the tourists. Findings from semi-structured interviews with local travel agents in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, reveal that the practices of making itineraries and giving information to tourists serve as methods of governing tourist flows. These practices lead to the local travel agents tending to deny their responsibility to govern the tourist flows. This article contributes to complexifying tourism governance analysis and offers potential solutions for the problem of tourism-caused overcrowding.