Tangible Digital Tourism Heritage: National Ecotourism Plan in Malaysia

Abstract

Lately, many kinds of research demonstrate the digital technologies Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) like social media, virtual reality, and augmented realities are vital for future digital tourism. Digital tourism can work across borders, and collaborative work among nations is already growing in recent years. Tourism sector performance contributes to a large part of the Malaysian service economy (The World Factbook, 2019). In 2021, Malaysia has faced an economic crisis and it affects tourism sectors. Moreover, data from the Ministry of Tourism have shown that the number of tourists is decreasing by 1.5% in March 2020. The model specification will assess the most important factors of tourism performance such as the Tangible Heritage and Intangible Heritage that was used by many previous researchers. Using the technique of hybridization this study will improvise the model by adding digital perspectives. The result of this dtudy has indicated that almost all of respondents have a high perception toward tangible digital heritage in Melaka or Penang. This scenario has become a serious issue for the government because Tourism Sector is one of the government's important agendas in the NKEAs through the National Ecotourism Plan. According to the Ministry of Tourism (MOTAC, 2018), the nation's tourism sector is now the sixth-largest contributor to the national economy in 2017. Unfortunately, among all agendas in 21 Action Plans, none of it mentions digital heritage tourism. Hence, the main objective of this study is to adopt a new Heritage Digital Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) Model for National Ecotourism Plan. The findings will help the government in updating the National Ecotourism Plan under NKEAs. Lastly, it will guide the government by understanding the important need of visitors and it can apply to other heritages sites in Malaysia.