ISSN: 2289-2915 © Penerbit UMT Journal of Business and Social Development Volume 6(1) 2018: 15-28 Journal of Business and Social Development Volume 6 Number 1, March 2018: 15-28 FROM HUNTING TO ADVENTURE WITH NATURE: ANALYSING THE REPRESENTATION OF NATURAL TOURISM ATTRACTIONS IN MALAYSIA (DARI MEMBURU KE KEMBARA ALAM: ANALISIS REPRESENTASI TARIKAN PELANCONGAN BERASASKAN ALAM SEMULA JADI DI MALAYSIA) NORHANIM ABDUL RAZAK* School of Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management, College of Law, Government & International Studies, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Kedah, Malaysia. *Corresponding author: norhanim@uum.edu.my Abstract: Although nature-based tourism is frequently presented as a sustainable form of tourism, there are claims that many destination marketers have often exploited this type of tourism in order to attract tourists and make profts. Despite the fact that many past works have investigated aspects related to nature especially ecotourism, very few studies explored on how natural resources have been marketed by the tourism promotional organisations. Owing to this reason, this paper analyses how nature-based attractions have been incorporated and presented to visitors in the promotional brochures using content analysis method. The content analysis of the brochures published from 1962 to 2016 found that natural resources have been incorporated extensively. Three categories of nature-based attractions represented widely in tourism brochures are national parks, islands and beaches, and mountains and hills. On the other hand, big game hunting was only marketed to tourists in the brochures published in the 1960s and 1970s, while types of natural resources promoted to tourists have expanded considerably from 1990s to 2016. Overall, fndings of this paper shed light into the understanding on how natural attractions have been represented to tourists for 54 years. It is revealed that with the rising environmental awareness, the Malaysian tourism authorities have modifed the way they presented nature-based attractions to some extent, from the image of exploiting natural resources for tourism purposes to environmental care and ethical travel in relatively recent promotional brochures. Yet, a few aspects and activities which contradict to the tourism sustainable practices are still traceable. This paper concludes that natural resources are among the primary attractions for the country’s tourism until today and these attributes have been utilised signifcantly in tourism promotional materials to attract tourists. Keywords: Nature-based tourism, ecotourism, adventure tourism, tourism promotion. Abstrak: Walaupun pelancongan berasaskan alam semula jadi selalunya dipaparkan sebagai satu bentuk pelancongan lestari, terdapat banyak dakwaan bahawa pihak pemasar telah mengekploitasi bentuk pelancongan ini untuk menarik pelancong dan mendapatkan keuntungan. Meskipun terdapat banyak kajian lepas yang telah melihat aspek berkaitan dengan alam semula jadi terutamanya ekopelancongan, namun tidak banyak penyelidikan yang mengkaji bagaimana sumber alam semula jadi telah dipasarkan oleh organisasi promosi pelancongan. Oleh yang demikian, kajian ini telah menganalisis bagaimana tarikan pelancongan berasaskan alam semula jadi telah dimasukkan dan dipaparkan di dalam brosur promosi pelancongan dengan menggunakan kaedah analisis kandungan. Analisis kandungan ke atas brosur yang diterbitkan dari tahun 1962 sehingga 2016 mendapati bahawa sumber alam semula jadi telah digunakan secara meluas. Tiga kategori tarikan alam semula jadi yang banyak dipaparkan dalam tempoh 54 tahun adalah taman negara, pulau dan pantai serta gunung dan bukit-bukau. Sementara itu, aktiviti memburu terutamanya binatang yang agak besar hanya dipaparkan di dalam brosur pelancongan pada tahun 1960-an dan 1970-an, manakala jenis pelancongan alam semula jadi yang dipromosikan kepada pelancong telah diperluaskan sejak tahun 1990-an hingga 2016. Secara keseluruhanya, dapatan kajian ini mampu memberikan pemahaman bagaimana tarikan alam semula jadi telah dipersembahkan kepada pelancong untuk tempoh 54 tahun. Adalah dikenal pasti dengan peningkatan tahap kesedaran terhadap alam sekitar, pihak berkuasa brought to you by COR ew metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by UUM Reposit