American Journal of Tourism Management 2014, 3(1A): 7-12 DOI: 10.5923/s.tourism.201401.02 Ecotourism and Coral Reef: Analysis of Coral Reef Conservation Awareness among Stakeholders in Perhentian Island, Malaysia Mohamad Saifudin Mohamad Saleh * , Nik Norma Nik Hasan School of Communication, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, 11800, Malaysia Abstract This study assessed stakeholders’ level of awareness and involvement in coral reef conservation activities in Perhentian Island, Malaysia. A total of 200 respondents consisting of the Besut District Department of Marine Parks (Terengganu) staff, local entrepreneurs and tourists were selected to answer the survey questionnaire. The findings revealed a difference in the level of awareness among stakeholders, with the Besut District Department of Marine Parks (Terengganu) staff has the highest level of awareness, on eco-touristic activities that threaten coral reefs and the issue of coral reef bleaching. Although the three groups of stakeholders have shown high level of awareness on the importance of coral reefs conservation activities in Perhentian Island, majority of them were uncertain about their involvement in conservation efforts due to conflict of interest between economic empowerment and their aim towards sustainability of coral reefs. Keywords Awareness, Coral reef conservation, Stakeholders, Malaysia 1. Introduction Recent years have seen the continuous and rapid growth of the tourism industry that could be equally compared to the growth of globalisation. Most countries are actively trying to promote their natural resources to the world, and Malaysia as a centre of mega-biodiversity is no exception in the development of ecotourism industry to attract the attention of both local and foreign tourists. Based on the year 2011 official statistics by the Ministry of Tourism Malaysia, 24.6 million foreign tourists whom had visited Malaysia had contributed RM56.4 billion to the national income (Utusan Malaysia, November 1, 2011). This amount had excluded the number of local tourists who had also visited the various tourist locations in Malaysia. Under the Malaysia Tourism Transformation Plan 2020, the Ministry of Tourism Malaysia is optimistic of the Malaysia's tourism industry by expecting it to grow threefold with the inflow of foreign tourists targeted at 36 million by the year 2020. Despite the economic boom generated by the tourism industry, the differences between conventional tourism and ecotourism have been constested for decades. Conventional * Corresponding author: saifudinsaleh@gmail.com (Mohamad Saifudin Mohamad Saleh) Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/tourism Copyright © 2014 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved tourism refers to the combination of activities carried out by individuals who move and stay in a destination outside their usual environment for more than a year (World Tourism Organization (WTO), 1993). In contrast, ecotourism can be defined in a much larger context whereby its tourism activities create cultural and historical understanding within the environment that presses on issues of ecosystem care and the generation of interest in an economic form to both local people and the government into encouraging natural conservation (Goeldner, et al. 2000). Ecotourism highlighted by Miller (1978) focused on sustainable tourism, with emphasis on the conservation and preservation of the environment among tourists. Body & Bhatt (2005) pointed out that the main goal of ecotourism is to provide travellers to experience the natural, environmental education and action towards sustainability. The different definitions between ecotourism and conventional tourism not only created a great debate among scholars, but confusion had also arisen in classifying specific areas as a location for either ecotourism or conventional tourism. This can be seen in the case of Malaysia islands. The islands were labelled as ecotourism locations, implementation of environmental protection and conservation was still low. This statement can be supported with previous studies by Tan (2000) and Chang (2009) who both discovered negative impact towards the locations’ natural resources and that these degradation have occurred in islands such as Perhentian Island, Redang Island and Tioman