Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
in heritage sites
M.M. Rashid, M. Jaafar, N. Dahalan & M. Khoshkam
School of Housing, Building and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
ABSTRACT: In order for tourism to be beneficial in terms of economic development, income earn-
ing, poverty diminution, and improving rural livelihoods, it should be linked with local economic activi-
ties of micro and small scale enterprises. Tourism is composed of conservative Small and Medium-sized
Enterprises (SMEs) as indicated by the fact that most tourist facilities are run by small and medium-sized
businesses. The main purpose of this study is to identify the gap in existing literatures to comprehensively
understand tourism SMEs performance in an archaeological heritage of the Lenggong Valley located in
a developing country of Malaysia. This study uncovered factors associated with the tourism SMEs per-
formance. While developing this part of tourism SMEs performance concept, tourism approach is par-
ticularly useful in relation to three aspects: SMEs owner manager characteristics, SME business practice
characteristics and networking. The implication of this study is that it is an attempt to provide a general
overview of SMEs business and tourism performance concept that can be used by stakeholders and man-
agers in the heritage sites.
Keywords
:
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), tourism SMEs performance, heritage sites
1 INTRODUCTION
allows technology transfer, creates human capital
and physical infrastructure, generates tax revenues
for government, and evidently tenders a variety
of products and services to consumers and other
businesses. Philip (2010) stated that SMEs induce
private ownership and entrepreneurial skills,
adjust quickly to shifting market situations, create
employment, vary economic activity, and make a
large contribution to exports and trade.
Previous studies on the relationship between
tourism and the SMEs focus more on hospitality
or accommodation service (Morrison & Teixeira,
2004; Mshenga & Owuor, 2009; Seppälä-Esser,
Airey & Szivas, 2009; Thomas, Shaw & Page,
2011), and very less focus on other types of SMEs
in tourism.
Consequently, this study is a conceptual article
with the aim to develop a SMEs tourism concept
through business and management perspectives.
The main purpose of this study is to identify
the gap in existing literature and obstruction for
Archaeological Heritage of the Lenggong Valley, a
UNESCO World Heritage Site in developing coun-
try of Malaysia to comprehensively understand
tourism SMEs performance from three aspects:
SMEs owner manager, SME business practice and
networking.
The Tourism has been recognized as one of the
most popular industries in terms of socio-eco-
nomic activity in the entire world. World Tourism
Organization's (2012) (UNWTO) reported that
international tourism would continue to grow in
2013, regardless of natural catastrophes around
the world, political revolution issues in the Mid-
dle East and North Africa and the doubtful glo-
bal economy. The number of international tourist
arrivals rose to 4.6%, with a record 982 million
tourists travelling worldwide. World Travel and
Tourism Council (2012) (WTTC) reported that:
“
travel and tourism's total contribution in 2011 was
US$6.3 trillion in GDP, US$743 billion in invest-
ment, US$1.2 trillion in exports, and created 255
million jobs. This contribution signified 9% of GDP,
5% of investment, 5% of exports and 1 in 12 jobs
”.
As reported in World Travel & Tourism Council
(2012) (WTTC) in their Travel and Tourism: Eco-
nomic Impact, 14.8% of Malaysia's GDP in 2011
was directly related to the contribution of tour-
ism and travel, an economic value of MYR125.4
billion.
Jenkins (2007) claimed that business activ-
ity generates jobs, develops inter-firm linkages,
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