Heritage tourism at the historical town of Malacca: examining opportunities, evaluating challenges

Abstract

Heritage tourism is one of the growing tourism products in Malaysia. Good marketing will increase the demand on heritage tourism and gives benefits to Malaysia tourism industry. This study seeks to explore the marketing strategies used by museums to market their product and examine the challenges faced in promoting and marketing the heritage tourism product. Data was collected using semi-structured interview method. Respondents consist of four museums including curators and operation assistant. Because of the respondent was selected at the location this study employs typical sampling. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis of Braun and Clark. Findings show that market segmentation, promotion and products/services were the marketing strategy employed by museums in this study. These museums faced several internal issues such as issues on employee and high operational cost as well as the external challenges includes changing environment. It is recommended that future research should be conducted at other state in Malaysia or other types of museum such as private museums so that knowledge on heritage tourism could be enriched.