POTENTIAL OF TAIPING CITY AS A HERITAGE TOURISM ATTRACTION IN PERAK

The existence of various monuments and buildings built since the early 1900s needs to be preserved as heritage tourist attractions. Taiping is one of the cities that has the potential to be promoted as a popular heritage tourism destination in Perak. To that end, the purpose of this study was to identify the types and categories of various buildings and monuments that have the potential to be used as heritage tourism attractions in the city; by examining the perceptions of local people on the potential of Taiping and to suggest strategies and measures preserve and conserve the heritage of the city. This study uses a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods. The results show that there are various monuments and old buildings being the potential to be heritage tourist attractions, including Rock Garden, Chinese Pagoda, F.M.S Station, Peking Hotel, railway station, Rest House 1894, clock tower, Silver Museum, and First Galeria. Among the things that need to be given attention in order to make Taiping a heritage tourist attraction are the level of cleanliness and cheerfulness of the environment, provision of basic facilities, maintenance and conservation of heritage site structure, promotional aspect, and security level in the area. Various strategies and measures are proposed to make Taiping a popular heritage tourism destination in Perak in particular and Malaysia in general.