The role of Melaka Historical City Council (MHCC) in influencing international tourist motivation to visit Melaka for Melaka’s cultural tourism / Nurul Aida Abdul Rahim

In 2008, Melaka was awarded as one of World Heritage Site by UNESCO. With this award, it enables Malacca to use the award as leverage to boost its cultural tourism industry. Although Malacca is an important heritage site in Malaysia, but there is no much research being done to study the tourist’s behaviour in Melaka. The main objective of this research project is to conduct an exploratory study on the relationship between tourist motivation and their destination choice, consumption behavior and source of information. Through this research project, the underlying tourist’s behaviours such as motivation, destination choice, consumption behaviour, and sources of information would be studied and analysed. This study was conducted at the Old Fort A’-Famosa, Stadhuys Building Banda Hilir and Spice Garden Sungai Melaka with 50 respondents of foreign tourists. From the study findings, there is a significant relationship between each variable. The international tourists stated that relaxation and exploring as their main motivation to visit Melaka. For destination choice dimension, foreign tourists considered visiting heritage site as a necessity compared to local tourists. In consumption behavior, the less they spend the higher motivation to visit Melaka. Meanwhile, most of the foreign tourists will stay more than two nights in Malacca. Finally, the most vital source of information for the potential tourists is words of mouths from the previous tourists to Melaka. At the end of chapter five, some recommendations is proposed to help the relevant stakeholders to enhance the cultural tourism industry in Melaka. Based on this finding on local and foreign tourist’s behavior, government agency, local authority and tour operators can work simultaneously to develop and propel the cultural tourism in Melaka to the international stage