Asian Social Science; Vol. 10, No. 10; 2014 ISSN 1911-2017 E-ISSN 1911-2025 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 226 Local Community Entrepreneurship: A Case Study of the Lenggong Valley Mastura Jaafar 1 , Norziani Dahalan 2 & Siti Asma Mohd. Rosdi 1 1 The School of Housing Building and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Minden, Penang, Malaysia 2 The School of Distance Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Minden, Penang, Malaysia Correspondence: Mastura Jaafar, The School of Housing Building and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800, Minden, Penang, Malaysia. Tel: 60-4-657-5235. E-mail: masturaj@usm.my Received: March 4, 2014 Accepted: March 25, 2014 Online Published: April 29, 2014 doi:10.5539/ass.v10n10p226 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ass.v10n10p226 Abstract Entrepreneurship has been acknowledged as the best approach to empower the socio-economic development of rural communities in various countries. Lenggong Valley is in its first phase of tourism development and entrepreneurship of local community is still under studied in Lenggong. By looking at various business activities that could be generated by the development, their involvement in business would contribute to a better economic return. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the entrepreneurship of local community in Lenggong Valley. Based on quantitative face to face survey conducted on 500 residents in Lenggong Valley, the finding indicates that some of the local communities in Lenggong are already involved in entrepreneurship activities; however their business survivability should be a concern as they face limited financial sources and support. Furthermore, the majority of them are still involve in agricultural related activities making an indication that major effort is required to transform their life-style from agriculture to entrepreneurship. The finding provides a suggestion to the government on the needs to implement various entrepreneurship related programme in Lenggong Valley. Strategies to increase their involvement could be done through innovative programs, awareness, preparedness, and education on future entrepreneurs. Having newly declared as a world heritage site, this paper demonstrates the preliminary result on the need for a deeper examination on local community entrepreneurship in Lenggong Valley. Keywords: entrepreneurship, community participation, Lenggong Valley and tourism development 1. Introduction Tourism is an industry with the potential to develop rural entrepreneurship. Sherief (2005) argued that poverty is predominantly rural, and affirms that rural development is increasingly being linked to entrepreneurship (Petrin, 1994). Entrepreneurship is crucial to economic growth. For rural areas, the benefits of entrepreneurship are undeniable. Entrepreneurship establishes the qualities of human capital to be highly skilled, resilient, and competitive, as well as innovative and creative in business (Vinten & Alcock, 2004; Thurik & Wennekers, 2004). Striving for developed nation status in 2020, Malaysia has identified human capital as the most important resource and has ensured successful transformation toward becoming a high-income country. The New Economic Model (NEM) launched in 2010 emphasizes the growth of micro-scale businesses and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and enhances the entrepreneurial ecosystem and chains. In the 6th Malaysia Plan (1992), the government introduced the concept of community development entrepreneurs through the “One Village, One Product” program, which was later known as “One District, One Industry.” The objective of this program is to attract tourists to rural areas, as well as to generate income by involving villagers in the entrepreneur community development program. Based on the example of Japan, this program develops SMEs within villages by using local resources to manufacture handicrafts, food, and agricultural goods. Lenggong is a popular cultural heritage attraction (Saidin, 2010). The attraction is situated in the Lenggong subdistrict, Hulu Perak District, Perak, Peninsular Malaysia, which is about 100 km from the capital, Ipoh. Lenggong valley is located between two mountain ranges, the Titiwangsa and Bintang, which make it suitable for agriculture and animal husbandry. Composed of a few villages, Lenggong is now prominent after being