commodification Stage of George Town Historic Waterfront: an assessment

ABSTRACT

The inscription ‘World Heritage City’ bestowed upon George Town (Penang) and Melaka has pinned Malaysia on the global tourism map. Both cities, since their acknowledgement, have been receiving a burgeoning number of tourists, diversification of motivation, and commercial landscape mushrooming within these inner cities. While some may have successfully retained their original form, many heritage buildings have been readapted to cater for other commercial demands. Plenty of heritage buildings have been turned into cafes, museums, and even boutique hotels to cater to tourist needs. Taking George Town as a case study, this study adopted the qualitative approach to assessing the stage of commodification based on the application of Creative Destruction Model (CDM). Data analyses on tourist arrivals, tourism investment, and resident attitudes revealed that this destination lies in the stage of pre-advanced commodification, which refers to a newly proposed stage of commodification to fit the characteristic of the study area. Model modification is required to suit the characteristics of a heritage destination in Malaysia.

KEYWORDS:

• Commodification
• tourism impacts
• heritage site
• Malaysia

Acknowledgement

The funding for this project was made possible through the research grant obtained from Malaysia's Ministry of Higher Education, under the Transdisciplinary Research Grant Scheme 2016 [TRGS grant no: 203.PPBGN.67611002].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The funding for this project was made possible through the research grant obtained from Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, under the Transdisciplinary Research Grant Scheme 2016 [TRGS grant no: 203.PPBGN.67611002].