Menoreh Mountain sustainable tourism development: a spatial outlook

Abstract

Abstract Increasing development of geotourism and Geopark raises awareness of more environmental-friendly and sustainable tourism which can be approached using spatial analysis. This paper aims to connect the spatial element with sustainability tourism in Menoreh Mountain and formulate sustainable tourism development. Using Moran’s Index, this study examines the Geo-tourism site’s spatial characteristics and how the development should be done based on that analysis. For the result, 120 sites have been collected through Google Maps data and a field survey for validation. The sites comprise caves, waterfalls, pine forests, summits/peaks, and religious sites. By plotting the density of the tourism destination to a certain village, the Global Moran’s Index for it is 0.318. The Univariate Local Moran’s I show 10 villages in the High-High quadrant, 4 villages in the Low-High quadrant, 3 villages in the High-Low quadrant, and 2 villages in the Low-Low quadrant or cluster. Based on the spatial pattern, it is crucial to focus on the characteristic of each quadrant to establish sustainable tourism comprising economic and geological, and ecological sustainability and strengthen the spatial policy. The characteristics of each cluster also become a basis for developing strategies regarding the administrative division of Menoreh Mountain.