Proceedings of the 2 nd Tourism and Hospitality International Conference (THIC 2014) 165 PROMOTION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ATTRACTIONS IN MALAYSIA: E-BROCHURE PERSPECTIVES H. Omar and N. Abdul Razak School of Tourism, Hospitality & Environmental Management COLGIS, UUM ABSTRACT Cultural heritage resources are among the primary tourist attractions commonly included in promotional materials. Various categories of heritage attraction, such as nature, culture and built environment, play an important role in attracting international as well as domestic tourists and are a major source of foreign exchange for many countries, including Malaysia. Cultural heritage resources are especially important to Malaysia in the development of tourism, as an agent of national integration and represent ing a key theme in the country‘s promotional campaign. Although several works have examined various aspects of Malaysian cultural heritage, few studies have explored this topic from the perspective of tourism promotion. Thus, this paper analyses how cultural heritage attractions are projected in current Malaysian tourism promotion. Content analysis was adopted in the assessment of cultural heritage attractions represented in the e-brochures published by Tourism Malaysia. The findings reveal that cultural traditions, buildings and natural heritage are all promoted. The key theme reflected through the descriptions and images of intangible and built heritage is the portrayal of Malaysia as a multi-ethnic destination, which is consistent with the current promoti onal tagline, ‗Malaysia Truly Asia‘. Attributes including traditional costume, rural lifestyles, music and dance, cuisine, games and pastimes, buildings, architecture, places of worship and handicrafts have been employed extensively in the e-brochures. Natural heritage resources and activities are also widely represented in various brochures either as specialised attractions, background or integrated with other types of attraction. Finally, the findings of this study add to the understanding of destination marketing by showing which aspects of cultural heritage have been selected and commoditised in tourism promotion. Keywords: cultural heritage; tourism promotion; e-brochures Introduction South East Asian nations are rich in heritage resources such as nature, culture, arts and history, and the cultural attractions are diverse and distinctive (Gaffar, Wetprasit and Setiyorini, 2011). Cultural heritage assets are widely employed as they have the power to attract tourists (Huibin, Marzuki and Razak, 2012). Besides their appeal, these resources have been utilised to differentiate destinations and enhance competitiveness (Gaffar et al., 2011). In Malaysia, heritage tourism has been selected as one of the niche products and has been expanded for tourism development over the past ten years (Mohamed, 2005). Interest in developing heritage tourism was shown by the Malaysian government in the Eighth and Ninth Malaysian Plans. In the Eighth Plan, aspects of heritage, culture and arts were developed to promote awareness among Malaysians and to strengthen identity and unity in the country, not only supporting the country‘s national agenda, but also enriching the tourism industry by promoting products and services available to visitors, and protecting cultural heritage resources (9MP, 2006). The development of culture and heritage received further attention in the Ninth Plan, which the emphasised human capital with positive cultural values, and promoted culture, arts and heritage-based activities to generate economic revenue (9MP, 2006). The importance of cultural heritage attractions is also being strengthened through the country‘s current promotional theme, ‗Malaysia Truly Asia‘, whose focus is to project Malaysia as a miniature of the whole of Asia through the numerous attributes of multi-ethnic groups. Given the importance of cultural heritage attractions in positioning Malaysia as a major tourist destination, it is important to explore how these resources have been projected in the current tourism promotion. Literature review Malaysia and heritage development Tourism in Malaysia has gone through various phases of development over recent years. Leisure travel began to develop during the period of British imperial expansion and colonialism (Information Malaysia, 1995; Hitchcock et al., 1993). The majority of foreign visitors holidaying in Malaya at this time tended to be British ex-patriates on weekend breaks, rather than visitors travelling from other countries. Natural heritage sites such as hill resorts were among the first tourist attractions, specifically developed for tourists to take advantage of brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by UUM Repository