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.
Audience building: Marketing Art Museums. (2001). Office Policy and Analysis [Brochure]. Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institution.
Blattberg, R. C., & Broderick, C. J. (1991). Marketing of art museums. In The economics of art museums (pp. 327-346). University of Chicago Press.
Bonn, M. A., Joseph-Mathews, S. M., Dai, M., Hayes, S., & Cave, J. (2007). Heritage/cultural attraction atmospherics: Creating the right environment for the heritage/cultural visitor. Journal of Travel Research, 45(3), 345-354.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology, 3(2), 77-101.
Brink, P. H. (1998). Heritage tourism in the USA: grassroots efforts to combine preservation and tourism. APT bulletin, 29(3-4), 59-63.
De Witt, D. (2010). Melaka from the Top. Selangor: NUTMEG PUBLISHING.
Farahani, B. M., Abooali, G., & Mohamed, B. (2012). George Town World Heritage Site: What We Have and What We Sell?. Asian Culture and History, 4(2), 81.
Fyfe, G., & Ross, M. (1995). Decoding the visitor's gaze: rethinking museum visiting. The Sociological Review, 43(1_suppl), 127-150.
Gayle, D. J., & Goodrich, J. N. (1993). Caribbean Tourism Marketing, Management and Development Strategies. Tourism Marketing and Management in the Caribbean. Ed. Dennis J. Gayle and Jonathan N. Goodrich. London and New York: Routledge.
Gilmore, A., Carson, D., & Ascenção, M. (2007). Sustainable tourism marketing at a World Heritage site. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 15(2-3), 253-264.
Huh, J., Uysal, M., & McCleary, K. (2006). Cultural/heritage destinations: Tourist satisfaction and market segmentation. Journal of Hospitality & Leisure Marketing, 14(3), 81-99.
Jamieson, W. (1998). Cultural heritage tourism planning and development: Defining the field and its challenges. APT bulletin, 29(3-4), 65-67.
Jeon, M. M., Kang, M. M., & Desmarais, E. (2016). Residents’ perceived quality of life in a cultural-heritage tourism destination. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 11(1), 105-123.
Kelly, L. (2009). Cultural Tourism and Museums. International Symposium on Art Museum Education, 1-13.
Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2008). Principles of marketing (12th Ed.) New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
McCarthy, J., & Wright, P. (2005). Time, place and technology in museums: a dialogical approach to the experience. Re-thinking Technolgy in Museums: Towards a New Understanding of People’s Experience in Museums.
McKercher, B., Ho, P. S., & du Cros, H. (2004). Attributes of popular cultural attractions in Hong Kong. Annals of Tourism Research, 31(2), 393-407.
McLean, F. C. (1993). Marketing in museums: A contextual analysis. Museum Management and Curatorship, 12(1), 11-27.
Merriam, S. B. (1998). Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education. Revised and Expanded from" Case Study Research in Education.". Jossey-Bass Publishers, 350 Sansome St, San Francisco, CA 94104.
Moore, K. (Ed.). (1994). Museum management. Psychology Press.
Nuryanti, W. (1996). Heritage and postmodern tourism. Annals of tourism research, 23(2), 249-260.
Qin, Q., Wall, G., & Liu, X. (2011). Government roles in stimulating tourism development: A case from Guangxi, China. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 16(5), 471-487.
Russo, A., Watkins, J. J., Kelly, L., & Chan, S. (2006). How will social media affect museum communication?. Proceedings Nordic Digital Excellence in Museums, 1-8.
Sheng, J., & Lo, A. (2010). Evaluating the tourism potential of public museums in Hangzhou: A supply-side perspective. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 27(3), 287-305.
Timothy, D. J. (1998). Cooperative tourism planning in a developing destination. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 6(1), 52-68.
Timothy, D. J., & Boyd, S. W. (2003). Heritage tourism. Pearson Education.
Tourism Malaysia (2015b). Event Highlights. Retrieved from the Tourism Malaysia (Holiday to Malaysia) Website: http://www.malaysia.travel/en/my
Tourism Malaysia. (2015a). Malaysia Tourism S
In-Text Citation: (Ismail et al., 2018)
To Cite this Article: Ismail, N. S., Salleh, N. Z. M., Omain, S. Z., Idris, N., Samori, Z., & Anas, N. (2018). Heritage Tourism at the Historical Town of Malacca: Examining Opportunities, Evaluating Challenges. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(1), 897–910.
Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode