Intangible Cultural Heritage as Tourism Product: The Malaysia Experience.

Abstract

Just as culture is dynamic, a sustainable approach of preserving intangible cultural heritage also goes beyond elevating it to a fixed position in history. It requires contact and cross-fertilisation with modernity to make the heritage values actualise themselves in the present and into the future. Hence, this paper explores a sustainable way of preserving intangible cultural heritage through commercialisation as a tourism product. The study used Malaysia as a case study by first highlighting the impact of tourism to the Malaysian economy and how cultural heritage is contributing to the advancement of the tourism industry in that country. Furthermore, the study identified four intangible cultural heritage items in Malaysia (Dikir Barat, Wau flying, Mak Yong Gasing) and from the viewpoint of the cultural evolution principle, this paper elaborates on how commoditising the cultural heritage into tourism products has been able to preserve them. The findings from the study suggest that intangible cultural heritage can only be sustainably preserved when it is economically viable to the owning community.

Keywords

• Intangible cultural heritage
• cultural tourism
• Malay culture
• sustainable development