Economic perspectives on adaptive reuse of heritage building as hotels in George Town, Penang

Nowadays, many buildings are constructed with the latest and more futuristic design. The modern design of the newly constructed building may have threatened older and historical buildings to evolve as well. However, heritage buildings are better to keep and maintain the way it is due to the high building value it possessed. Some of the problems of adaptive reuse identified in this research are high cost of construction and uneconomic building return. The aim of this research is to study the economic perspectives of adaptive reuse in heritage buildings. The objectives are to identify adaptive reuse of heritage building as hotels, to determine the hotel success factors and to study the rate of success of economic return on adaptive reuse of heritage building as hotels in George Town, Penang. Data was collected by observations, questionnaires and interviews methods. These data were then analysed using SPSS (Version 24) with Inductive Approach. The results of this study will benefit the future property investors that will adapt any heritage buildings into hotel. From this study. there are 30 heritage buildings adapted into hotels with interior design as the main hotel success factor. With an average duration of only 9 years to get back their capital return, hotel owners agreed that adaptive reuse is an investment that is worth to invest.