This research aimed to determine the challenges faced by the rural creative tourism sector in recovering from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, this sector was well-developed and provided many contributions to the local economy. However, the pandemic has badly inhibited the development of the rural creative tourism sector. This study used a post-positivist qualitative approach in which the researchers collected the data based on the formulated cross-sector collaboration theory or conceptual framework, which was then reconfirmed. Interviews with several informants consisting of creative tourism actors and regional tourism officials were conducted to identify the challenges in cross-sector collaboration. The research findings showed that cross-sectoral collaboration was required to figure out the impacts of activity restrictions on the local economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, the limited government budget and the absence of appropriate empowerment strategies for rural creative tourism were obstacles faced by the creative tourism sector in trying to recover from the impacts of this pandemic. We can conclude that an effective collaborative strategy model should build on the assets of local village communities and other strategic sectors, such as education, media, technology and business. This could be adaptively performed through local government support and village government policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, by maintaining opportunities to help the creative tourism sector in rural areas to recover.
Keywords: rural creative tourism, COVID-19, cross-sector collaboration, pandemi
