Proceedings of SOCIOINT 2019- 6th International Conference on Education, Social Sciences and Humanities 24-26 June 2019- Istanbul, Turkey ISBN: 978-605-82433-6-1 180 MODELLING THE MALAYSIAN HERITAGE FOOD LOYALTY INTENTION: THE EFFECTS OF SUBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE, AND SATISFACTION OF INTERNATIONAL TOURISTS’ FOOD CULTURAL EXPERIENCE Siti Radhiah Omar 1 , Siti Nazirah Omar 2* , Siti Nurul Aini Mohd Rodzi 3 , Nor Hamiza Mohd Noor 4 , Nurul Azlinda Chek Talib 5 1 Dr., Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, MALAYSIA, sitiradhiahomar@yahoo.com 2 Ms. Universiti Teknologi MARA, MALAYSIA, sitinazirah.omar@yahoo.com 3 Ms. Universiti Teknologi MARA, MALAYSIA, nurulaini@uitm.edu.my 4 Ms. Universiti Teknologi MARA, MALAYSIA, norhamiza226@uitm.edu.my 5 Ms. Universiti Teknologi MARA, MALAYSIA, azlindatalib@uitm.edu.my *Corresponding Author Abstract Cultural heritage food experience holds a boundless impression on tourists’ loyalty towards a touris m destination. To attract more international tourists to Malaysia, the role of Malaysian Heritage Food as the most valuable asset need to be expanded by safeguarding the uniqueness of the food culture from fading. Hence, this study aims to investigate international tourists’ perspectives on Malaysian Heritage Food (MHF), delineate the dimensions of Subjective Knowledge, Perceived Importance of Malaysian Food Culture, and Food Culture Involvement and to scrutinize the significant effect of predictors on Loyalty Intention. Finally, to examine the mediating effect of Tourist Satisfaction on the association of Tourist Attitude and Loyalty Intention, quantitative survey was conducted via self-administered questionnaire. The Structural Equation Modeling was performed to examine the hypotheses which backbone by the Expanded Rational Expectations Intention model. Findings demonstrated that international tourists had consumed MHF. All the tested variables have significant effect on Loyalty Intention. Finally, this study assists to endure the unique Malaysian food culture and to strengthen Malaysia as a food tourism destination in the world. Keywords: Malaysian Heritage Food, perspectives, international tourists, food culture, safeguarding. 1 INTRODUCTION Asian countries constitute more than 50% of the total international tourist arrivals as reported by World Tourism Organization (WTO) since 1995, and this was experienced at about 4% of annual growth. This total figure is expected to reach up to 1.5 billion by the year 2020 (Chung, 2004). According to Salleh (2009), tourism market is currently monopolized by Asia and the Pacific region and Malaysia is recognized by Tourism Malaysia to be the highest rank of international tourist arrivals compared to the other ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries. Besides, UNWTO/Global Tourism Economy Research Centre, (GTERC) (2016) also reported that Malaysia is one of the highest potential countries for tourism destination which was contributed at about 9.3% from the total number of international tourists’ arrival to Asia