**2. Maritime tourism in Malaysia**

In the challenging, modern lifestyles, stress has emerged, especially from continual demands to meet basic needs, increasing demands in the workplace as well as difficulties in personnel relationships. In general, tourism can be defined as activities of people travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environments for leisure, business or other purposes for not more than one consecutive year. Therefore, tourism has become a competitive and dynamic sector that entails the capacity of adaptability towards changes in customers' demand, level of satisfaction, availability of safety procedures, and variations of enjoyment levels among tourists.

Malaysia has a total coastline of 4675 kilometres (2905 miles), where the one in Peninsular Malaysia spans 2068 kilometres (1285 miles) while East Malaysia has 2607 kilometres (1620 miles). These coastlines have the potential for the development of new marinas to cater to the increasing demand for marine-tourism activities. However, its development was deemed not competitive by Parliament on August 15, 2018. Due to competition, the SQS model, together with the certified quality management system, has been suggested to achieve a high standard in water quality, pollution, prevention, safety and security.

Malaysia offers a wide range of cultural activities, natural heritage and leisure activities. As indicated in **Table 2**, based on statistics from the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) 2016, the total value of the Malaysian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) showcases an increasing trend from 2007 (841.36 billion) to 2015 (1287.97 billion) [9]. However, contributions from the tourism industry to the GDP indicate the opposite trend on average—declining from 1.94% in 2007 to 1.48% in 2015. However, contributions from the tourism sector did encounter positive developments along the way, especially in 2009, 2013 and 2015. On the other hand, this

**79**

*Applying and Promoting the Seaport Quality System (SQS) and Spatial Interaction Model (SIM)…*

**GDP of tourism (MYR million)**

 841.36 16.4 1.94% — 1003.33 12.7 1.26% −0.68% 879.22 13.4 1.52% +0.26% 1108.57 13.1 1.18% −0.34% 1295.18 12.7 0.98% −0.2% 1366.58 13.0 0.95% −0.3% 1405.26 13.7 0.97% +0.2% 1687.07 14.2 0.84% −0.13% 1287.92 13.5 1.48% +0.64%

**Contribution of tourism in GDP (%)**

**Changes of the tourism in GDP**

industry faced downfalls in 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2014, for instance. In a nutshell, contributions from the tourism sector are not significant. On the average,

Momentous innovation is required in the tourism industry to boosts its contribution to be equivalent to industries such as mining and quarrying (98.2 MYR billion in 2016), agriculture (93.6 MYR billion in 2016), manufacturing (254.2 MYR billion in 2016), construction (50.4 MYR billion in 2016) and other services (MYR 594.0 billion in 2016) [10]. In comparison, the number of tourists embarking and disembarking in Europeans seaports totalled more than 400 million in 2016 (Eurostat 2017). However, in Malaysia, only about 6,841,493 passengers were recorded at Malaysian seaports in 2016 [10]. Unfortunately, the number of tourists arriving at Malaysian terminals has declined substantially in recent years. For example, the number of tourists/passengers handled in 2010 was 18,968,152, but it plummeted to 7,257,803 in 2015 [10]. Based on this scenario, this chapter proposes turning recreational seaport into a new cluster in the maritime business. This is done by unveiling its growth prospects that can enhance its contributions to the national GDP through the adoption of the SQS model. In addition, this chapter will explore the opportunities to assimilate seaport and the tourism sector that can, together,

The development of recreational seaports has become increasingly important for Malaysia due to the very strategic and competitive geographical position within the region, which already has thriving maritime clusters located in neighbouring countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam and the Philippines. Since Malaysia has a total coastline of 4675 kilometres (2905 miles) comprising 2068 kilometres (1285 miles) in the peninsula and 2607 kilometres (1620 miles) in East Malaysia; it, thus, possess the potential to create new marinas to cater to the increasing demand for marine-tourism activities. So far, Malaysia has developed nine public marinas (see **Figure 2**) that can be used to promote marine-tourism activities. However, based on the audit findings reported to Parliament in 2018, these public marinas are not competitive. To be competitive, public marinas should have quality management by applying the SQS model, paying special attention to the possibility of achieving a certified quality and risk management system based on high standards in water quality, pollution preven-

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93765*

**product (MYR billion)**

**Year (s) Total gross domestic** 

*Source: Adapted from EPU [9].*

**Table 2.**

its contribution is about 1.23% only annually.

*Total revenue of Malaysian tourism industry (2007–2015).*

bring benefits to the country.

tion, safety and security.

*Applying and Promoting the Seaport Quality System (SQS) and Spatial Interaction Model (SIM)… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93765*


#### **Table 2.**

*Tourism*

in 2016 [5].

ment specifications [7, 8].

**2. Maritime tourism in Malaysia**

quality, pollution, prevention, safety and security.

However, from these 27%, limited references on seaport quality constitute the major limitation of this chapter. This chapter will focus on the contributing factors, as indicators to develop Malaysian seaport competitiveness and also to analyse the impact of seaport quality on Malaysian seaports. The aims are to make local seaports as efficient and effective as possible to aid the nation's economic growth. This concept of seaport quality can be merged with seaport tourism to promote and innovate competitiveness in the industry. Exploring standardised seaport tourism policies will strengthen networking among seaport cluster in the maritime industry. This can be done by collaborating and cooperating to achieve the goals of promoting seaport tourism. Networking will also serve as an efficient and effective solution for the good of the nation's economy. This fact is supported by the Malaysian Trade Statistics' volume trade published in 2017. The volume trade witnessed a growth of 1.5% in this region, from 1.463tn in 2015 to 1.485tn

**1.1 Integration SQS model and risk quality management systems**

**Table 1** shows the integration of the SQS model and certified risk management system. The integration of both elements—SQS model and risk management system—will reveal and create a new module for seaport tourism by extending the existing standard that can be used in the recreational seaport management of tourism. The ISO 31000 focuses on minimising deviations from objectives, while ISO 9001 focuses on maximising achieving customer require-

In the challenging, modern lifestyles, stress has emerged, especially from continual demands to meet basic needs, increasing demands in the workplace as well as difficulties in personnel relationships. In general, tourism can be defined as activities of people travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environments for leisure, business or other purposes for not more than one consecutive year. Therefore, tourism has become a competitive and dynamic sector that entails the capacity of adaptability towards changes in customers' demand, level of satisfaction, availability of safety procedures, and variations of enjoyment levels among

Malaysia has a total coastline of 4675 kilometres (2905 miles), where the one in Peninsular Malaysia spans 2068 kilometres (1285 miles) while East Malaysia has 2607 kilometres (1620 miles). These coastlines have the potential for the development of new marinas to cater to the increasing demand for marine-tourism activities. However, its development was deemed not competitive by Parliament on August 15, 2018. Due to competition, the SQS model, together with the certified quality management system, has been suggested to achieve a high standard in water

Malaysia offers a wide range of cultural activities, natural heritage and leisure activities. As indicated in **Table 2**, based on statistics from the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) 2016, the total value of the Malaysian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) showcases an increasing trend from 2007 (841.36 billion) to 2015 (1287.97 billion) [9]. However, contributions from the tourism industry to the GDP indicate the opposite trend on average—declining from 1.94% in 2007 to 1.48% in 2015. However, contributions from the tourism sector did encounter positive developments along the way, especially in 2009, 2013 and 2015. On the other hand, this

**78**

tourists.

*Total revenue of Malaysian tourism industry (2007–2015).*

industry faced downfalls in 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2014, for instance. In a nutshell, contributions from the tourism sector are not significant. On the average, its contribution is about 1.23% only annually.

Momentous innovation is required in the tourism industry to boosts its contribution to be equivalent to industries such as mining and quarrying (98.2 MYR billion in 2016), agriculture (93.6 MYR billion in 2016), manufacturing (254.2 MYR billion in 2016), construction (50.4 MYR billion in 2016) and other services (MYR 594.0 billion in 2016) [10]. In comparison, the number of tourists embarking and disembarking in Europeans seaports totalled more than 400 million in 2016 (Eurostat 2017). However, in Malaysia, only about 6,841,493 passengers were recorded at Malaysian seaports in 2016 [10]. Unfortunately, the number of tourists arriving at Malaysian terminals has declined substantially in recent years. For example, the number of tourists/passengers handled in 2010 was 18,968,152, but it plummeted to 7,257,803 in 2015 [10]. Based on this scenario, this chapter proposes turning recreational seaport into a new cluster in the maritime business. This is done by unveiling its growth prospects that can enhance its contributions to the national GDP through the adoption of the SQS model. In addition, this chapter will explore the opportunities to assimilate seaport and the tourism sector that can, together, bring benefits to the country.

The development of recreational seaports has become increasingly important for Malaysia due to the very strategic and competitive geographical position within the region, which already has thriving maritime clusters located in neighbouring countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam and the Philippines. Since Malaysia has a total coastline of 4675 kilometres (2905 miles) comprising 2068 kilometres (1285 miles) in the peninsula and 2607 kilometres (1620 miles) in East Malaysia; it, thus, possess the potential to create new marinas to cater to the increasing demand for marine-tourism activities. So far, Malaysia has developed nine public marinas (see **Figure 2**) that can be used to promote marine-tourism activities. However, based on the audit findings reported to Parliament in 2018, these public marinas are not competitive. To be competitive, public marinas should have quality management by applying the SQS model, paying special attention to the possibility of achieving a certified quality and risk management system based on high standards in water quality, pollution prevention, safety and security.
