Assessing tourists´ attitude towards responsible cultural heritage tourism in Melaka: Development and validation of responsible heritage tourism scale

The aim of this study is to develop and validate a scale measuring tourists´ attitude toward responsible heritage tourism (RHTS). The case of Melaka´s heritage tourism since its inscription as World Heritage City by UNESCO in July 2008 forms the scope and location of the study. Methodology entailed site study with observations during the item generation phase followed by two surveys using student samples for the purification of the scale. Following the pretesting, test and retest phase, a final 38-item RHTS was administered to 250 local and foreign tourists who had visited Melaka. Using exploratory factor analysis, eight conceptually meaningful dimensions are generated that form the RHTS. The RHTS was assessed for its psychometric properties. Using the framework of heritage and responsible tourism, practical and theoretical implications are explicated.