Penang as the World Heritage City

This book explores the dimensions of Cultural Traits and Heritage tourism in Penang. Penang is attractive to tourists because of its uniqueness, heritage and it is a cultural city with multi- racial ethnic population. Lack of knowledge and experience, combined with different interest may cause the tourism industry collapse. Cultural Traits and Heritage tourism is discussed as Penang''s opportunity to create tourism platform where resources and market would be kept and at the same time, competition with other World Heritage Cities will be created. Cultural Traits and Heritage recently has become an important topic and concept to tourism development especially in Penang since Penang was awarded as the World Heritage City by UNSECO in July 2008. Hence, in this research, it proposes the links of self representation to current desired outcomes of Penang''s distinctiveness and sustainability of Penang UNESCO award. At the same time, the model also tests how these outcomes influence thedestination ability to meet tourists'' expectations and how Penang should act in competing in the global heritage tourism industry.