As a pluralistic nation, Malaysia consists of diverse ethnic groups of people with various cultures that integrate harmonious and peaceful living in a politically stable and wonderfully rich environmental setting. Due to such unique features, people from abroad become largely attracted to this land and thus frequently arrive here as visitors and tourists. There are tremendous amounts of attractions for the visitors and tourists, and people from various backgrounds arrive to stay here temporarily, generating around RM65 billion in foreign earnings, adding to its national coffer every year. Nevertheless, tourism also causes a major negative effect in which the local culture may be assimilated into the alien norms and behaviors through the continuous process of acculturation. Due to day-to-day interactions with the tourists and visitors, many sociocultural impacts have affected local values, which contextually require to be redefined. This book analyzes critically the sociocultural and environmental impacts of tourism in Malaysia, having collected both qualitative and quantitative data at the empirical level of investigation.

Continued growth in the demand for sport tourism experiences has heightened the need for advanced, in-depth and critical insights that are theoretically informed. This incisive book has been written to address that need and to stimulate the curiosity of students, educators and practitioners alike.

This collection of papers from Tourism Geographies emphasizes new and emerging research paradigms in the geographic study of tourism. The papers included in this collection follow one of two threads: explicitly supporting specific research frameworks, or implicitly presenting new and emerging theoretical perspectives through empirical research on the geographical topics. These begin with three overview papers from themes that emerged from recent annual meetings of the Association of American Geographers, including evolutionary economic geography (EEG), political ecology and community resilience. Each of these theoretical and conceptual frameworks is leading to new explorations and insights in a wide variety of geographical and social science research, including tourism studies. These are followed by a series of papers that extend our knowledge and thinking on a range of key geographical topics, including development and underdevelopment (by Saarinen & Rogerson), sustainable tourism planning (by Torres-Delgado & Saarinen), encounters with the natural environment (by Hill), and the geography of place names (by Light), as well as economic geography and new technologies and their applications to spatial behavior research. The papers in this special issue are especially relevant to tourism scholars, and very much represent the types of perspectives that Tourism Geographies seek to promote. This book was published as a special issue of Tourism Geographies.

This collection offers a sample of contemporary works on tourism and its impact on the Malaysian environment, written by academics from a variety of perspectives. Given the growing body of literature on different aspects of the industry the coverage is by no means representative, let alone exhaustive, of the current discourse. Nonetheless the nineteen chapters cover a range of interests and concerns which have emerged as a consequence of spectacular growth in tourist arrival which currently places Malaysia as one of the most popular destinations in Asia. Recent forecast indicates that the growth trends will continue for at least another decade before the country as a destination approaches maturity. This volume would be a useful reference for students, academic and other researchers who are looking for detailed information to enable them to analyse the impacts and implications of tourism development on the host society.

Tourism development plays an important role in enhancing economies.The purpose of this research is to identify the perceptions of residents in the Mabul Island towards the impacts of tourism development. Two different community respondents were selected using a random sampling technique to complete a survey instrument. Personal observation was also carried out to observe the nature of host-guest interactions at this area. Model suggested by Butler 1975 use in the present study was valid and reliable in predicting host residents' interactive behavior with tourists.Survey findings reveal that Suluk People at stage "Passive-positives: passively agreeing with and accepting something" toward tourism development.For Palao people, they are in stage "Passive-negative: resigned acceptance of something one disagrees with," however they still view the tourism more in a positive way.