Unlocking Sustainable Rural Tourism to Support Rural Development: A Bayesian Approach to Managing Water-Based Destinations in Indonesia
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThanks for the opportunity to review this paper. The authors are to be congratulated on a well-written paper which does have the potential for publication. The focus of this paper is rural water-based tourism in the Kedung Ombo reservoir area in Central Java, Indonesia, and I note that the authors have published papers on similar issues/case study location in the past, eg:
1) Ariyani, N.; Fauzi, A. Pathways toward the Transformation of Sustainable Rural Tourism Management in Central Java, Indonesia. Sustainability 2023, 15, 2592. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032592
2) Nafiah Ariyani, Fauzi, A., & Umar, F. (2023). Predicting and determining antecedent factors of tourist village development using naive bayes and tree algorithm. International Journal of Applied Sciences in Tourism and Events, 7(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.31940/ijaste.v7i1.1-15
3) Ariyani, N., & Fauzi, A. (2022). A POLICY FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT BASED ON PARTICIPATORY APPROACHES: A CASE STUDY IN THE KEDUNG OMBO TOURISM AREA-INDONESIA. Geo Journal of Tourism and Geosites, 40(1), 129-135. doi:https://doi.org/10.30892/gtg.40115-811
I mention the above papers, as the current manuscript draws heavily on these papers, so much so that I cannot see the contribution that this paper makes in its current format. For example, on lines 71-72 the aim of the paper is “to identify key factors determining sustainable tourism village management”, which surely is the purpose of article 2 above, which uses a similar methodology.
As the focus of this paper is meant to be on sustainable rural water-based tourism development, I would have expected to find the literature review (typo line 85) to provide a review of the literature on this topic. How are the authors defining water-based tourism? What are the key issues in the sustainable development of rural water-based tourism? Which issues are relevant to the Kedung Ombo case study? What does this paper add to the current body of research? Instead, the literature review provides some basic definitions of rural tourism (lines 87 to 98) and a brief outline of the benefits of rural tourism development (lines 101-109). The rest of the ‘literature review’ is about potential methods and the benefits of Bayesian Network, which really should feature in the ‘materials and methods’ section, rather than the literature review.
This brings me to the methods. I note that the data is based on a focus group consisting of 19 people, and yet from Table 1 (note typos line 226), the role of the stakeholders in water-based tourism is unclear (eg head of village, manager of village, forest management company etc). Indeed, the focus group data appears to have been drawn from the same focus group as presented in paper 2 (above). Perhaps stakeholders who are actually involved in the provision of rural water-based tourism would have been a more suitable sample for this paper?
The results focus on describing the findings from the BN analysis. However, because of the lack of literature on sustainable rural water-based tourism development, the discussion is limited to describing the findings from the BN analysis. For example, on lines 265-266 what does it mean to have a ‘level of sustainability of water based tourism of 36% high’? How does this compare with other rural water based tourism developments? The influence of financial incentives, climate, stakeholder engagement, infrastructure and accessibility are well-established in any tourism development, so what exactly makes this particular development of water based tourism at Kedung Ombo reservoir sustainable?
Unfortunately, the conclusions and recommendations again seem to relate to paper 2 (above), with many of the recommendations focusing on the management and development of village-based tourism (rather than water based tourism).
Perhaps the authors should consider a further round of data collection which focuses specifically on water-based tourism development as there is potential here for the BN analysis to offer new insights. However, those insights can only be identified if the authors engage fully with water-based sustainable tourism development literature.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageOverall, the paper is well-written. There are a number of typos throughout the paper, some of which I have referred to above.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors did a great job by accomplishing a decision-making study based on Bayesian network in tourism industry. It was an interesting paper. I enjoyed reading it.
However, the flowing notes need to be explained and added before publication:
The study’s goals have been pursued based on implementing a Bayesian network in decision making process in the tourism industry. Bayesian network implementation would need identifying prior information and posterior information which usually are referred to prior probability distribution and posterior information. There is a need to have a criterion that can assess quality of the decisions or identified variables which in Bayesian framework is called likelihood value. Moreover, the study process usually would need to be done multiple times and results should be recorded accordingly to benefit from Bays theorem.
· The authors have used prior and posterior terms in their results but did not provide any feedback neither in introduction or material and methods.
· Equation 1 (L = 178) is Bayesian theorem, please mention that in text and explain each term that have been used in the equation. The following reference could be helpful for you:
Ang, A.H.S.; Tang, W.H. Probability Concepts in Engineering: Emphasis on Applications to Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2e Instructor Site; John Wiley & Sons Incorporated: Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2007; ISBN 047172064X.
· The child and parent terms that authors have used in text are the same prior and posterior. Please explain them for the reader.
· The assessment criteria in Bayesian decision and likelihood function that GeNiew Bayes- 235 ian Network software utilized should be presented in the manuscript and be explained.
· Is there any other way to present the sensitivity analysis results. The explanation is sufficient, but the graph is confusing. I cannot compare the prior and posterior distribution of the Nodes/influential parameters and make judgment about sensitivity analysis. You can simply create a table that shows statistics (minimum, maximum, average, and standard deviation) of the prior and posterior values of the Nodes in addition to your graphs.
General comments:
· Please add more details to your map (Figure 1) caption and present some coordinates in the text.
· L255: …described in Table 2...
· Please enhance the resolution of your figures. Your paper will be more recognized with high resolution figures.
· Make sure you use parentheses in correct format when you write a formula (equation) in the manuscript.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAs the authors stated, this study aims to identify critical factors for effectively managing the tourist village in Kedung Ombo through a participatory approach and exploring the relationships between tourism management components, external and internal conditions, and their environmental impact to foster sustainable village tourism and rural development.
The topic considered is quite interesting, but at the same time, there are a number of suggestions and comments, therefore, the study needs to be finalized and expanded.
1. What exactly is the novelty of your research? Based on the title of your article, even if we take only the abstract of source 53 (not to mention the content), the research is based on a ready-made methodology. What is the main difference between the approach proposed by the authors and the algorithm in source 53?
2. Spell out clearly which problem is solved and state the problem statement at the beginning of the study.
3. There is nothing in the article about public-private partnership (or municipal-private partnership), which is widely used in many, especially developed countries of the world. Why can't it be applied in your case? Within the framework of this partnership, the government and business interact, and ESG factors necessary for the problem under study are also considered in detail.
4. Insufficient figures or tables indicating the level of relationship (e.g., correlation coefficient) to illustrate the analysis of cause-effect relationships of the main variables (factors). Describe in detail the basic logical relationship between variables, as well as the relationship of their variable nodes.
5. It is worth describing the average tourist visiting the area, then readers will have a more complete picture to evaluate the proposed approach.
6. The construction of some phrases does not sound quite “competent”. For example, there is a sentence in the conclusions: “The government must consider reallocating village financial resources towards more productive activities like rural tourism beyond mere infrastructure development”. The government is not a business and its function is not to provide “productive activities”. The main thing is to cover the basic needs of the society, and first of all it is the same infrastructure, which the private sector simply cannot build (e.g. roads). In addition, then you should at least refer to studies assessing the “productive activities” of the state and give your specific proposals.
7. Why not all Variable Nodes in Table 2 have Measurement. Why Financial incentive is evaluated “Yes, No” and not “Low, Medium, High”.
8. Many minor errors and inaccuracies in the text of the article:
There is no reference to Figure 3 in the text.
In line 175: Figure 2 instead of Figure 1.
In line 185: the variables do not match formula (2).
In Figure 4, shouldn't the bottom right arrow have the opposite direction?
In line 371: Figure 9 instead of Figure 6.
In line 375: Figure 10 instead of Figure 9.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript is markedly improved. The authors have amended and clarified in line with my comments.
Clarify one point. The authors indicated that the comment "In Figure 4, shouldn't the lower right arrow have the opposite direction?" was corrected. But Figure 4 remains unchanged.
Author Response
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