Building Lenggong World Heritage site brand identity: Assessing core values of local community

摘要

This paper looks into the preliminary but yet critical step in developing audstrong brand for the Lenggong Valley World Heritage site, that is theuddevelopment of the site’s brand identity. The Lenggong Valley has recentlyudbeen listed as UNESCO’s world heritage site. At this nascent stage, it isudcritical that the brand identity of the site is identified to ensure consistencyudand effectiveness of future promotion and marketing efforts. Brand identity inudthis study refers to the brand elements considered important by theudstakeholders to be projected to the target audience. It represents theudstakeholders’ promise to the audience. As established in the literature, inuddeveloping tourism destination brand identity, it is important that theudaspirations and cultural values of the brand owner (e.g. local residents, stateudand central Governments) is established at an early stage so that theuddevelopment of tourism destinations will be pegged to their aspirations andudvalues rather than external and alien values. The agreement of theudstakeholders on the brand identiy is very important not only to ensure audconsistent and integrated brand identity will be projected to tourists, but alsoudto assure that they will support and work together for the sustainability of theudLenggong Valley WHS. This research assesses the core values andudaspirations of one of the key stakeholders of the Lenggong Valley WorldudHeritage Site that is the local community. Twenty local communityudrepresentatives, including the head of village and the head of an indigenousudtribe, and local residents were interviewed to gain insights on what theyudconsider to be key values to be encapsulated as the identity of the LenggongudValley World Heritage Site. The findings revealed that the local community’sudvalues do not coincide with the values that were promoted in getting theudvalley enlisted as the World Heritage Site. The heritage that is highly valuedudby the local community encompasses non-archaeological heritage.