No abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the tourism life cycle of Langkawi Island, Malaysia. The paper seeks to investigate the stages of life cycle that the island has passed through and at what stage the island is in today. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts Butler’s Tourism Area Life Cycle model as the research framework to describe the characteristics of each stage of the island’s tourism life cycle and determine the time scale of the stages. The evidence presented in the stages is derived from secondary sources dating from 1642 to present. Findings – The findings indicate that the tourism life cycle in Langkawi Island has undergone four stages of development and that it is currently in the consolidation stage. Numerous characteristics suggested by Butler’s model for each stage are clearly discernible in the island’s tourism growth. The government serves as the major player and catalyst for tourism expansion in the island from one stage to the next. Practical implications – It is hoped that the paper will contribute to a better understanding of how tourism and its market have evolved in Langkawi Island. The paper also provides insights on how future planning should be directed in more sustainable and responsible ways to position the island. Originality/value – The paper delivers a comprehensive understanding on the tourism developmental process of Langkawi Island, besides facilitating the understanding of major fundamental causes and conditions and the accompanying transition in the stages. The paper also bridges the gaps in knowledge addressed in similar previous studies.

The increasing demand of holidaymakers for vacations in Malaysian Island destinations has resulted in a rapid increase in the number of coastal resorts. To explain the growth of coastal resorts, the approach of the life cycle model by Butler [(1980). The concept of a tourist area life cycle of evolution: Implications for management of resources. The Canadian Geographer, 24(1), 5-12] is adopted. This paper describes the life cycle of coastal resorts in Tioman Island by providing the evidences of historical and fieldwork data from the start of the 1890s up to the present. The findings demonstrate that tourism has resulted in substantial changes in the island's coastal resorts. The resorts in the island have passed through subsequently four stages of development as suggested in Butler's model and are currently in the consolidation stage. In each of the stage, the changes in resort morphology and types of tourist visitation are evident. Government and private incentives are the two main factors that stimulate the transformation of the resorts from one stage to the next.

Transportation is one of the key indicators used to measure the Quality of Life of people especially those living in the urban area. Many aspects of transportation are very significant as they have the power to directly influence our way of life in search for a better Quality of Life. Many Malaysians depend on private vehicle transportations to cater their daily travel needs which inevitably leads to an over infiltration of vehicles into the urban area. Automobile dependency has always been viewed as a potential threat to Malaysia’s urban areas, as it contributes to the increase in traffic congestion, higher accidents rate, inefficient usage of urban land, environmental pollution, adverse economic impacts, urban sprawling and reduces the overall quality of public transportation. All these negative impacts deteriorate the quality of life of urban dwellers. This chapter will discuss Malaysia's urban transportation in general, focusing on the struggle between private and public transportation usage and the impacts of automobile dependency towards the urban dwellers’ Quality of Life; as well as putting forward possible strategies and measures in an attempt to provide a balanced urban transportation system.

The change in land uses in rural areas is often associated with urbanization process. However, urbanization and industrialization also caused dramatic changes in the land use of rural areas and small towns, where a significant loss of agricultural land and an increase in the construction of rural settlements have led to transformation from non-built-up to built-up land uses. Factors influencing this transformation are many, ranging from physical, economic, social and environmental reasons. This paper intends to study land use changes from 2006 to 2020, determine land use growth parameters, and establish whether the identified physical factors conform to the land use growth and changes in Guar Cempedak, Kedah by applying the technique of overlay, AHP and fishnet using GIS. Findings of the study show that there were significant land use changes during the period of 2006 to 2014, where commercial, institution and public facilities and transportation experienced significant increase, while non-built land uses such as forest, lost more than 90% of its area to other land uses. Distance to transport network and distance to commercial activities identified as the main influencing factors, have been found to be consistent with the result of intensity analysis on land use changes in this small town.