Between Tourism and Intangible Cultural Heritage

Malaysia sees a tremendous rise in tourist arrivals in Malacca with the listing of Melaka on UNESCO's world heritage list in 2008. Its cultural tradition is one of the outstanding universal values that contribute it to gain its placed on the list. Nevertheless, there are studies that have suggested this positive outlook may have its downside. The aim of this paper is to present past studies on tourism in relationship to intangible cultural heritage and examines their positive and negative views on the importance of tourism and cultural heritage. It is hope that the outcome of this paper will guide an on-going study that not only looks at tourism and intangible cultural heritage in Malacca, but also develops a cultural map in an early efforts towards safeguarding intangible cultural heritage.