Emerging Built Heritage Commodification of Boutique Hotels in World Heritage Site: Evidence From George Town, Penang, Malaysia

Abstract

Although heritage, by its very nature, has been in existence for a long time, an understanding of the ways in which heritage products can be used is relatively recent. The increasing number of boutique hotels in George Town has contributed to the distinctiveness of lodging accommodation. In many cases, this has led to the commodification of the built historic environment and its history into a form of tourism product. This study sought to investigate the process of the built heritage commodification of boutique hotels in George Town. A semi-structured interview was conducted among boutique hotel managers and entrepreneurs in George Town, Penang. The findings revealed that external factors such as the global recognition of George Town as a World Heritage Site and the setting of the historic city are the pull factors for investors to purchase premises in the city centre. These built heritage resources (tangible heritage) and intangible values have been assimilated with their contemporary uses to be commodified into different types of boutique hotels. The attempt to establish a built heritage commodification model will contribute to the empirical data on the process and the factors that lead to the built heritage commodification of boutique hotels in heritage city.

Postoccupancy evaluation of historic buildings after their adaptive reuse into boutique hotels: an experience from Yazd, Iran

“…A heritage building's uniqueness is a key characteristic when adapting into a boutique hotel. The uniqueness comes from the outstanding architectural designs, specific layouts, historical value and interior design (Rahman, 2018). These factors attract hotel guests who are looking for something special (McDonnell, 2005).…”

Volume 19 : 2021 Issue 3

“…Jasme et.al (2014) stated that the guidelines in preserving the prewar properties included forecourt, roof, external, and internal parts of the building. According to Lum (2018) and Rahman (2018), some of the landlords of these heritage properties transformed the old buildings into much more valuable properties. For instance, cafés, boutique hotels, restaurants, and others.…”

“…At present, the Hedonic Pricing Model (HPM) still dominates both literature and applications due to its flexibility and straightforwardness in estimation. Nonetheless, the nonlinearity, multicollinearity and heteroscedasticity problems (Kilpatrick, 2011;Antipov & Pokryshevskaya, 2012;Rahman et al, 2018) that plagued HPM may cause biased estimates and specification errors that may reduce prediction accuracy (Adi Maimun, 2011). Inaccurate predictions will negatively affect the decisions of policy-makers, valuers and developers.…”

Application of Machine Learning in Analysing Historical and Non-Historical Characteristics of Heritage Pre-War Shophouses

“…In 2008, George Town Penang Island Malaysia was recognized as a historic city inscribed by the UNESCO World Heritage Site (Azizan & Desa, 2020). This recognition was granted due to the prevalence of diverse tangible and intangible heritage surrounding the George Town area (Rahman, 2018). This paper focuses on the cultural heritage site which is made up of pre-war shophouses located within the core and buffer zones in George Town.…”