Tourists acceptance of digital map in Melaka heritage trail / Tengku Muhammad Jawisma Tengku Ismail and Ahmad Zaki Tajul Urus

Malacca was full by remarkable history in which have been colonized by three main powers namely Portuguese, Dutch and British. From 16th to 20th century, monuments were built with the touch of Europe, China, India and Islamic architectural designs which attract the tourist to travel in Malacca. Malacca also declared as a "Historical City" on 15th April 1989 and as a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 7th July 2008 (Mohd Hasrul et.al, 2010). It is believed that the history in Malacca is being carefully preserved, maintained and improved throughout the times. Besides, the tourist can have some educational experience while having a tour along the street of Malacca that can make known the story of past glory, drama and conquests (Chye & Wee, 1998). Tourism is an essential element that can help to generate investment, foreign exchange and employment for the development of economy in Malacca. In the year 2009, the arrival of 8,905,273 tourists to Melaka depicts a significant rise of about 23.6% as compared to the previous year (Unit Promosi Pelancongan, Melaka, 2009). It indicates that tourism is a key sector industry which is important in Malacca economy. To add, promoting remarkable historical places mainly as the effort of Malacca government to improve tourism development proved that they were dedicated to work strategically and systematically in order to place the country to the world map. The tourists visited Malacca in order to appreciate the history and heritage of Malacca and they prefer to visit significant places such are colonial buildings, museums and historical ruins. They usually seek knowledge from visiting historical places as well as to have "learning oriented" experience. The state government agencies have been financed by American Express Foundation to recognize several significant sites that revealed in the heritage trail map (Mohd Hasrul et.al, 2010). The heritage trail acts as self-guided trail which serves as bilingual interpretation board, strategically located at each of historical site and the other information also available which were acquired through guidebooks, brochures and also through exhibitions labelled and docent-led tour. The tourists generally plan their activities to visit the wanted destinations once they arrived in Malacca. However, the information that they could obtain in the interpretation board form is inadequate which prevent the visitors to get more information (Mohd Hasrul et.al, 2010). For instance, the visitors frequently complaint that the traditional writing of information was insufficient and they are unable to capture or imagine the past history (Mohd Hasrul et.al, 2010). In addition, mobile phones provide the access to Internet and medium of communication. Mobile devices stand the first place of market growth (Hassan, January 2013). The percentage of mobile phone usage was increasing worldwide and growing in tourism industry. It could be a good alternative or at least it can tag or search the old tourist tools such as maps, compass, brochures and guidebooks and also pack them altogether (Hassan, January 2013). Plus, the growing numbers of tablet users who use tourism applications are also remarkable. The industry can easily use the technology to create innovative, interesting and useful applications by using the location service and it can be one of the admirable and popular applications for the visitors in tourism industry (Hassan, January 2013). Mobile devices are very useful for people when they are going for travel in order to support, to keep connect, to inform as well as to entertain them (Hassan, January 2013).