Empowering the natural touristic assets for sustainable tourism in the State of Pahang

Touristic assets be they nature or cultural-based have now becoming an important part of the prerequisites for ensuring sustainable tourism. It becomes a prime motivation among tourists, especially for destinations and states that have ample natural resources. In Malaysia, Pahang is one states that has a diverse range of natural assets that can ensure continous tourists’ arrivals. The question posed here is, how can some of these touristic assets classified as ‘stiff’ and ‘hard’ can be changed into more friendly characters, preferably ‘soft’ and ‘meaningful’ experiences. Although ecotourism and nature tourism have existed for more that four decades in tourism development in Malaysia, it has not been clearly understood, especially by the stakeholders. This gap provide strong basis for empowerment initiative as these assets are highly apprieciated in offering real life experiences, story-telling and local knowledge to tourists today. This paper aims to identify the provision of natural assets in Pahang and the eco-cultural of Tasik Chini-Pekan as an effort to identifying approaches that can be enhanced in the natural assets. Results indicate that the natural assets have multi-faceted dimensions that suit the Pahang tourism icon, as well as souvenir, jewelery products and scenic landscape that makes rural tourist routes more attractive. This paper put forward proposals on how to strengthen these natural assets to enable the stakeholders to do iterative collaborative initiative between the community and the University. This will ensure that natural assets to become a key prerequisite tourism development and sustainability in Pahang tourism development.