Interpretation of shared culture of Baba and Nyonya for tourism linkage of four countries in the ASEAN community

Abstract

     The article presents: (1) a comparative study of interpretation types of Baba and Nyonya tourism and evaluates the interpretation results in four countries, (2) the development of the self-guiding interpretations of Baba and Nyonya tourism that present the shared culture in the four countries and, (3) the results of tests on the effectiveness and satisfaction of volunteers from the development of the self-guiding interpretation of Baba and Nyonya tourism. The research methodologies were: (1) a field survey of 18 Baba and Nyonya tourism destinations in the four countries-Phuket, Thailand, Penang and Malacca, Malaysia, Singapore, and the north coast of Java Island, Indonesia-together with in-depth interviews with 20 interpreters and five voluntary tourists and (2) the development of 10 self-guiding postcards for the interpretation of the shared cultures of Baba and Nyonya for tourism linkage among the four countries in the ASEAN community. The 10 postcards were tested and the information knowledge of 30 voluntary treatment tourists was compared with 30 voluntary control tourists; the former group was asked about the effectiveness of the postcards and their satisfaction. The test results were analyzed using a t-test and the effectiveness and satisfaction were analyzed using percentages. The results showed that there were personal and non-personal interpretations providing differences in the Baba and Nyonya tourism areas. The results from the t-test between the treatment and controlled groups found that before the treatment group had read the 10 postcards, their knowledge was minimal; however, after they had read the 10 postcards for self-guiding interpretation, their knowledge after was significantly different at .05. Moreover, the treatment group recorded “satisfied” gradings for the 10 postcards overall with a score of 4.49 out of 5 using a Likert scale; while the highest satisfaction was with the quality of printing (4.80), but the lowest satisfaction was increased Southeast Asia culture concern and awareness (4.07).