Adaptation strategies for impacts of climate change on tourism in Malaysia: Assessing the perspectives of community

Climate change is a critical issue today which significantly affected the ecosystem of the community. The government of Malaysia has constructed and implement numerous policy and plan in order to curb the climate change but it sad to see that this country is still at the moderate phase of overcoming the issue. Climate change consequences on tourism are crucial because it increases the danger of species extinction, decreases freshwater, increases wildfire accidents, heat waves, and illnesses, all of which cause visitors to avoid certain places. Being aware of climate change consequently help the communities to prepare for its effects. As a result, the community is also becoming more educated and able to develop proactive and reactive measures to combat climate change and reducing their social vulnerability. Hence, this study surveyed the adaptation strategies for impacts of climate change on tourism in Malaysia by assessing the perspectives of community. The objectives of this study are to investigate community awareness of climate change; to examine community perceptions toward the impacts of climate change on tourism; to assess community perceptions toward the adaptation strategies used to overcome the impacts of climate change on tourism; and further to seek the differences between the community socioeconomic characteristics and awareness of adaptation strategies for climate change. The researcher had analyzed 400 respondents representing the communities in various destinations in Malaysia which are directly and indirectly affected by climate change through a distribution of questionnaires. The findings indicated that two domains derived pertaining to community awareness and were named as affected tourism and community and physically affected. As for the community perceptions, three domains derived and were named as socio-economic impacts, physical impacts and environmental impacts. Another two domains derived to answer objective three of the study regarding the community perceptions toward the adaptation strategies and were named as enhancing awareness and capacity development and also diversification of tourism activities. Additionally, significant relationships are found among socioeconomic characteristics and community awareness. This study significantly provides an adaptation plan for climate change complements the tourism stakeholders in Malaysia social innovation aim, which focuses on sustainable communities. It also assists the policymakers by providing a framework for measuring and understanding the consequences of adaptation measures of climate change in the tourism industry.