Tourism and local development in Malaysia: A SWOT analysis of the Royal Belum as an eco-tourism product

Tourism is fast becoming a crucial growth industry not only because of its ability to generate physical and economic development of a country but also to act as catalyst for its social, cultural, political and technological development. This study examined ecotourism products at the Royal Belum Park since gazetted as a National Park in terms of its strengths, weaknesses; opportunities and threats in the planning and development of regional tourism. Qualitative research approach and a SWOT analysis (strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats) were adopted. The results showed Royal Belum Park as an intriguing tourist destination offering a variety of exciting features such as flora and fauna, people, soil, landscape. There were, however, certain weaknesses behind Royal Belum advantages such as logging within the vicinity, environmental imbalance, pollution and lack of basic infrastructure. These drawbacks had given rise to various new challenges to be faced by the authorities and local community at large in their effort to realize the goal of maintaining the Royal Belum as a vital tourism asset.