Conservation Management Of Historical Sites And Buildings At Medan Bandar Alor Setar

The purpose of this study is to determine the extent of planning and management of historical sites and buildings in Alor Setar, under the present organisational structure. It is also to investigate if tourists visited such places,
particularly at the Medan Bandar area. Since the historical public buildings are under the management of both the technical and non-technical government agencies, the paper seeks to find their perception on them. It is hoped that the findings from this study would provide the best organisational conservation management set-up that could be implemented by the State of Kedah. This study uses a questionnaire formulated by the author based on an open-ended pilot questionnaire, interviews and a small part of the questionnaire prepared by Kaufman, T.J. (1999) in her unpublished dissertation. A total of sixty one questionnaires were sent out and forty one filled and returned. The results of the findings were analysed using the SPSS programme. The study also uses secondary data from research and interviews. The findings revealed that the planning and management of historical sites and
buildings in Alor Setar is totally dependent on the decisions at the Federal Government level. Tourists do visit the historical buildings at Medan Bandar but the numbers are on the decline. Except for the setting up of a conservation management body, there seems to be an agreement on the importance of preserving historical buildings and sites, by both the technical and non-technical people.