Abstract:
Culture and environment are the main factors in eco-tourism. Without culture, tourists will only be able to enjoy the natural beauty and quickly lead to boredom and will not establish repeatitive effect . Indonesia with its cultural diversity should have been realized the potential as a key to tourism development. Unfortunately, this potential has not been maximized. The local Tourism Group in Belakang Padang Subdistrict, Batam City highlights Malay culture and environment to its tourism development, but this is not supported by the behavior of the people who litters the sea .
The findings of this study is the Belakang Padang society institutionalized values and norms in several respects, including those relating to economic activity and social life such as maintaining transport management, the values of marriage, and social order. Acceptance of local communities towards tourists are still very positive and showed high hospitality. The beliefes that nature will heal itself has been establishing a culture of littering the sea, which causes inconvenience for guests. Lack of public awareness in support of a clean quality of tourist destination is still an obstacle in the development of community based touris .
