Mapping the Overall Individual Visitors’ Experiences at Sarawak Cultural Village as a Living Museum Site

A living museums or non-living museums were an integral tourist destination as it was important to understand visitors’ experiences during the visitation. This study aimed to explore the overall visitor experiences at Sarawak Cultural Village (SCV) at an individual level. The visitors’ experience was seen vital as it will also help in improving SCV in the future. The qualitative research method was used for this study using interview and photovoice. The findings from interview sessions and the photo voices taken during the visits were analysed using thematic analysis to produce the visitors’ experience. A total of 20 respondents participated in this study and were randomly selected during the two-weeks of data collection. The result of the study showed that SCV was a unique and authentic place to visit when comes to a heritage and cultural site. An initial result suggested that there are 18 sub-themed emerged from this study such as memory, learning, emotion, engagement, knowledge discovery, interaction, natural environment, aesthetic, fun and entertainment, involvement, uniqueness of culture, rare object, creativity, originality, culture exposure, antique artefacts, unique architecture, and costume. A further analysis showed that these 18 sub-themes can be categorised into 6 main themes such as: memory experience, learning experience, emotional experience, aesthetic experience, interactive experience and cultural experience. Further study should be done to explore the use of social media and other methods of data collection such as journey map