AccScience Publishing / AJWEP / Volume 14 / Issue 3 / DOI: 10.3233/AJW-170029
SHORT COMMUNICATION

The Impact of Ecotourism in Taman Negara National Park, Malaysia: Tourist Perception on Its  Environmental Issues

Mohd Sayuti Hassan1 Sharifah Nurlaili Farhana Syed Azhar1*
Show Less
1 Centre for Global Sustainability Studies (CGSS), Universiti Sains Malaysia 11800 Minden, Penang, Malaysia
AJWEP 2017, 14(3), 85–89; https://doi.org/10.3233/AJW-170029
Submitted: 23 March 2016 | Revised: 9 May 2017 | Accepted: 9 May 2017 | Published: 5 July 2017
© 2017 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
Abstract

Taman Negara National Park, Malaysia (TNNP) is widely known for its famous ecotourism destination  in Malaysia. Many developments have taken place over the last decades. However uncontrolled development  has caused serious environmental damages in the area and concerns visitors. The paper is designed for relevant  stakeholders and TNNP management in order to refine their policy inputs to improve tourist perception of TNNP  in accordance with the 2030 Agenda. The main objectives of the study are to explore visitor’s perception on  environmental issues in TNNP, the main issue and how it affects their number of tourist revisit. Three methods  employed in the study are surveys, interviews and document analysis. The study received favourable feedback and  valuable input from respondents. Contamination of Kuala Tahan River was identified as the main environmental  issue in TNNP. As a result, majority of visitors will not revisit TNNP if environmental issues in the area remain  unsolved

Keywords
Perception
ecotourism
national park
environmental pollution
sustainable development
Malaysia.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
References

Anuar, A.N.A., Ahmad, H., Jusoh, H. and M.Y. Hussain (2013). Policy and tourism development strategy towards tourist friendly destination in Kuala Lumpur. Asian Social Science, 9(2), 180.


Backhaus, N. (2005). Tourism and nature conservation in Malaysian national parks (Vol. 6). LIT Verlag Münster.


IUCN, U. WWF (1980). World Conservation Strategy. World Conservation Union, United Nations Environment Programme, World Wide Fund for Nature, Gland.


KC, A., Rijal, K. and R.P. Sapkota (2015). Role of ecotourism in environmental conservation and socioeconomic development in Annapurna conservation area, Nepal.

International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 22(3), 251-258.


Lascurain, H.C. (1987). The future of ecotourism. Mexico Journal, 1, 1.


Mohamed, B. (2008). Pelancongan lestari. Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Kuala Lumpur.


Thompson, P. (1995). The errant e-word: Putting ecotourism back on track. Explore, 73, 67-72.

Share
Back to top
Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution, Electronic ISSN: 1875-8568 Print ISSN: 0972-9860, Published by AccScience Publishing