PENANG, 16 August 2018 – The Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Sustainable Tourism Research Cluster (STRC) recently held an ‘International Symposium on Heritage, Gastronomy and Tourism: A Reflection,’ which focused on several issues in relation to the study on tourism.

The Head of STRC, Professor Dr. Badaruddin Mohamed said that, the one-day programme which was held on 14th August at the Toray Building in USM, was the first project done by USM in collaboration with Kyoto University of Foreign Studies (KUFS), to conduct a research project on heritage, gastronomy and tourism studies involving international students who are on exchange between the two universities.

He said, this symposium serves as a venue for discussions on the reflection and findings of the collaborative research conducted by several Asian universities.

Badaruddin, as the programme head, moderator and also a presenter, is proud on having the opportunity to host the International Symposium. He is a professor in Tourism Planning and Development at the USM School of Housing, Building and Planning (HBP) and the programme head of the Local Knowledge Research Group at the university.

“Asian locations have now become major tourist destinations, attracting tourist markets with diversified offerings, unique and colourful cultures, lower prices, and authentic hospitality,” said Badaruddin during his presentation on the topic ‘Segmentation of Heritage Tourists in Selected ASEAN Cities.’

He conducted a study on the cities of Hanoi, Kyoto, Chiang Mai and Penang, where he studied the differences based on the demographic profile of the cities, such as tourist profiles, image of the cities, travel motivations, and what tourists like and hate.

The compilation of the demographic profile has shown an interesting outcome, including their level of satisfaction. It has proven that each city has its own set of positive and negative attributes affecting tourists.

This was followed by a presentation from Phan Khoa Diem of Hanoi University in Vietnam, on the topic ‘Tourism, Culture, and Street Food’. Being one of the many topics that caught the delegates’ attention, it was about the culture and culinary preferences of different cities.

He said that the research was meant to identify and examine culinary preferences of inbound tourists, and factors affecting their food and restaurant choices via surveys that was conducted in Penang, Luang Prabang, Chiang Mai, Kyoto and Hanoi.

“The government in Indonesia wants everybody to eat rice,” said Dr. Wiwik Sushartami from Gadjah Mada University, Jogjakarta, Indonesia who was the next to present on the topic ‘The Culture of Rice and Globalisation’.

It was an interesting topic as we know that rice is a staple food in all Southeast Asian countries and also Japan. The research on this topic discovered the way how people cultivate and how people look at rice. Thailand has many ways in cultivating rice and to the Thai people, it is an important symbol for the country. There is a diversity based on habitat, heritage and history. 

The young generations especially in Malaysia, even though they like to eat burgers, rice would still be eaten later and this is the proof of how important rice is in Southeast Asian countries and Japan. As for Japan, they have cultivated rice into onigiri and sushi and that is how the Japanese eat rice.

10 presenters highlighted their studies, coming from different universities such as Chiang Mai University, Thailand; Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang; Hanoi University, Vietnam; Kyoto University of Foreign Studies (KUFS), Japan; Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia and Souphanouvong University, Laos.

All the presenters have an academic background in tourism studies and they presented on several different topics from selected research that they have conducted.

This international symposium is the result of a collaborative effort between Hanoi University, Gadjah Mada University, KUFS, Japan Foundation, Chiang Mai University, Souphanouvong University and USM. The Japan Foundation initially provided the support for this programme and they hope that it will continue to be held in the future.

Text: Puteri Najwa Othman (MPRC intern)/Editing: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin