Ecotourism as a Strategy for Tourism Development in the Blumbang Gede lake area, Soso Village, Blitar Regency, Indonesia

The Blumbang Gede lake area in Soso Village, Blitar Regency, holds great potential for ecotourism development due to its natural beauty and biodiversity. This area is designated as a lake conservation zone in the Blitar Regency Spatial Plan and faces issues such as poor waste management, inadequate infrastructure, and insufficient governance. Although ecotourism in protected areas has been widely discussed, few studies have linked the concept of ecotourism to priority-based strategic planning for lake ecosystems. This study aims to formulate tourism development guidelines for the Blumbang Gede lake area. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with four key informants, field observations, and a literature review. Content Analysis (CA) was used to determine ecotourism characteristics, while the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to identify priority development aspects. The integration of CA and AHP facilitated the transfer of qualitative ideas from stakeholders into quantifiable priority weights, thereby enhancing analytical precision and reducing subjectivity. The formulation of development guidelines was conducted using a qualitative descriptive method to process data regarding characteristics, priority criteria, and current best practices. This study identified 20 characteristics in the Blumbang Gede lake area, with conservation as the highest priority (0.338) to maintain water quality, prevent erosion, and preserve ecosystem balance. The development direction is toward sustainable ecotourism. Theoretically, this study contributes to the development of an integrated analytical framework, and practically, it provides a prioritization model to guide resource allocation and conservation-oriented ecotourism planning in the lake area.