Strategic Communication Across Destination Branding Components in Sustainable Community Based Coffee Edutourism Planning

Abstract Community-based tourism planning requires strategic communication to connect institutional decisions before a destination becomes fully operational. This study analyzes how strategic communication between Village-Owned Enterprises (BUMDes) and Tourism Awareness Groups (POKDARWIS) operates across destination branding components during the planning of community-based coffee edutourism in Sumbertangkil Village, Indonesia. The study uses a qualitative case study involving four purposively selected participants from BUMDes and POKDARWIS. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions and analyzed deductively and interpretively using Balakrishnan’s Strategic Branding of Destinations Framework. The results show that strategic communication operates across five branding components through shared understanding, coordination, meaning articulation, and decision-making. Shared aspirations have emerged to develop coffee as a community-based educational experience, while institutional roles are still evolving. Coffee resources form an edutourism portfolio, although target–portfolio matching remains broadly defined. Sumbertangkil’s positioning is developing as a community-based coffee learning space but has not yet been formalized into a shared brand proposition. Communication strategies remain under development, while feedback functions as an evaluation mechanism. The study identifies a strategic branding integration gap, defined as the distance between destination aspirations and managers’ ability to connect stakeholder roles, targets, product portfolios, positioning, communication, and feedback into a coherent branding direction. Strategic communication therefore functions as a cross-component coordinating process whose integrative capacity depends on the institutionalization of shared decisions. This institutionalization is relevant to sustainable community-based tourism planning because it can align stakeholder participation, local resources, destination experiences, and locally grounded economic opportunities within a development direction.