<![CDATA[This study addresses a gap in comparative legal scholarship on Indonesian tourism governance: existing studies predominantly examine Aceh’s halal tourism or Yogyakarta’s cultural tourism separately, while limited attention has been given to how differentiated constitutional arrangements shape regional tourism governance within the same decentralised legal system. The study aims to compare the legal foundations, regulatory orientations, institutional arrangements, and sustainability implications of tourism governance in Aceh and the Special Region of Yogyakarta (DIY). Using normative legal research with statutory, conceptual, and comparative approaches, the study analyses national and regional legislation, legal doctrine, and recent scholarly literature. Four parameters constitutional/legal foundation, regulatory orientation, institutional design, and sustainable-governance implications are applied systematically to both cases. The analysis finds that the same concurrent governmental authority over tourism under Law No. 23 of 2014 produces differentiated governance models because Aceh’s special autonomy embeds Islamic legal norms in regional regulation, whereas Yogyakarta’s special status embeds cultural preservation and integrated regional planning in tourism governance. The comparison demonstrates that constitutional asymmetry operates as a substantive variable in the design of regional tourism regulation rather than merely as a formal institutional distinction. The study’s novelty lies in connecting constitutional asymmetry with differentiated regional autonomy to explain why equivalent decentralised authority generates different tourism governance models. It recommends regulatory harmonisation, stronger inter-agency coordination, clearer implementing instruments, and participatory mechanisms that preserve regional constitutional identity while ensuring legal certainty and sustainable community welfare.]]>
